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UCSB   LIBR'ARY 
y-030^5 


THE   MASQUE    OF  JUDGMENT 


THE 
MASQUE  OF  JUDGMENT 


BY 

WILLIAM  VAUGHN  MOODY 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUQHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

tfitocrsibe  press,  CambriDge 
1902 


Copyright  I  poo  by 
Small,  Maynard  &  Company 

{Incorporated} 


Entered  at  Stationers'  Hall 


To  E.  D.  S. 


PRELUDE 


The  action  falls  immediately  before  the  Incarnation 


Persons  of  the  Prelude 


RAPHAEL 
URIEL 

THE  ANGEL  OF   THE  PALE  HORSE 

A  SHEPHERD 

A  SHEPHERD  BOY 

A  YOUNG  MAN  (persona  muta) 

A  GIRL 


SCENE   I. 

A  meadow  and  coppice  near  the  sea ;  beyond  low 
hiUs  the  roofs  of  a  town.     Dawn. 

Raphael. 

Another  night  like  this  would  change  my  blood 
To  human:  the  soft  tumult  of  the  sea 
Under  the  moon,  the  panting  of  the  stars, 
The  notes  of  querulous  love  from  pool  and  clod, 
In  earth  and  air  the  dreamy  under-hum 
Of  hived  hearts  swarming, — such  another  night 
"Would  quite  unsphere  me  from  my  angelhood! 
Thrice  have  I  touched  my  lute's  least  human 

strings 
And  hushed  their  throbbing,  hearing  how  they 

spake 

Sheer  earthly,  they  that  once  so  heavenly  sang 
Above  the  pure  unclouded  psalmody. 
Sing  as  thou  wilt,  then,  since  thou  needs  must 

sing! 

For  ever  song  grows  dearer  as  I  walk 
These  evenings  of  large  sunset,  these  dumb  noons 
Vastly  suspended,  these  enormous  nights 
Through  which  earth  heaves  her  bulk  toward 

the  dawn. 
With  song  I  shelter  me,  who  else  were  left 

3 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Defenceless  amid  God's  infinitudes, 
Bruised  by  the  unshod  trample  of  his  hours. 

(He  sings. ) 

The  late  moon  would  not  stay, 
The  stars  grow  far  and  few ; 
Into  her  house  of  day 
Hung  with  Sidonian  blue 
Stealeth  the  earth,  as  a  maenad  girl 
Steals  to  her  home  when  the  orgies  are  o'er 
That  startled  the  glens  and  the  sleeping  shore, 
And  up  from  the  passionate  deeps  of  night 
Into  the  shallows  and  straits  of  light 
Softly  the  forests  whirl. 

Laugh,  earth  !    For  thy  feigning-face  is  wise  ; 
There  is  naught  so  clear  as  thy  morning  eyes; 
And  the  sun  thy  lord  is  an  easy  lord ! 
What  should  they  be  to  him, — 
Thine  hours  of  dance  in  the  woodland  dim, 
The  brandished  torch  and  the  shouted  word, 
The  flight,  the  struggle,  the  honeyed  swoon 
Neath  the  wild,  wild  lips  of  the  moon  1 

Beyond  the  seaward  screen  of  hazel  boughs 
The  waves  flash  argent  'neath  the  clambering 

light; 
But  wherefore  do  these  wondrous  colours  run 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Out  of  the  place  of  morning  ?    The  young  leaves 
Are  swept  and  winnowed  upward  as  a  flame, 
And  in  their  whispering  glories  swiftly  dawns 
A  shape  of  lordly  wings,  each  plume  distinct 
With  dyes  auroral.     Where,  'mid  store  of  light, 
Most  spiritual  silver  burns,  a  face  comes  through. 
My  comrade  Uriel  cometh  from  the  sun ! 

Uriel  (appearing). 
Why  tamest  on  thine  errand,  Eaphael  t 

Raphael. 
I  do  no  errand  here. 

Uriel. 
Why  earnest  thou  then? 

Eaphael. 

Since  earth  is  dear  to  me.     Sometimes  it  seems  — 
Treading  the  prairie's  autumn  sibilance, 
Or  when  the  tongues  of  summer  lightning  speak 
In  the  corners  of  the  cloud  —  I  could  forget 
My  station  'mid  the  deathless  hierarchies, 
And  change  into  a  clot  of  anxious  clay. 

Uriel. 
Mock  not,  sweet  brother !  thou  who  knowest 

well  — 
Better  than  I  or  Michael  or  the  rest  — 


THE    MASQUE   OF   JUDGMENT 

The  throes  that  shake  these  clots  of  passionate 

clay; 
Knowest  their  lewd  harsh  blood,  their  shell  of 

sense 
So  frail,  so  piteously  contrived  for  pain. 

Raphael. 

I  dare  to  say  how  little  jest  it  was. 
Oft,  as  I  leave  these  sliding  shafts  of  dark, 
And  homeward  climb  the  immaterial  cliffs, 
My  heart  makes  question  which  were  worthier 

state 

For  a  free  soul  to  choose, — angelic  calm, 
Angelic  vision,  ebbless,  increscent, 
Or  earth-life  with  its  Teachings  and  recoils, 
Its  lewd  harsh  blood  so  swift  to  change  and  flower 
At  the  least  touch  of  love,  its  shell  of  sense 
So  subtly  made  to  minister  them  delight, 
So  frail,  so  piteously  contrived  for  pain. 

Uriel. 

Brother,  thou  dost  not  well  to  wander  here. 
If  thou  wilt  roam,  choose  some  less  troubled  star. 
The  roaring  midst  of  the  insatiate  sun 
Where  God  has  set  my  watch,  is  peace  to  this ! 
Of  all  the  bitter  drops  that  dewed  His  brow 
In  his  old  agony,  this  earth-drop  fell 

6 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Most  bitter  salt,  and  ever  since  hath  been 
Fuller  of  travailling  than  other  worlds. 

Raphael. 
Thy  speech  is  dark.     I  understand  it  not. 

Uriel. 

Of  a  dark  thing  I  speak  a  few  dark  words. 
Put  from  thy  gaze  the  sweet  bloom  of  these  hills 
And  all  this  gorgeous  dapple  of  the  sea, 
And  let  thy  memory  stand  again  with  me 
On  Time's  untrodden  threshold,  that  first  day 
Which   searched    and    stung    our    immemorial 

peace 

With  pangs  of  vernal  influence.     Heaven  rose 
As  if  from  sleep,  and,  lo !  through  all  the  void 
Clambered  and  curled  creation  like  a  vine, 
Hanging  the  dark  with  clusters  of  young  bloom. 
Then  from  the  viewless  ever-folded  heart 
Of  the  mystic  Eose,  stole  breath  and  pulse  of 

change, 

Delicious  pantings  such  as  seize  the  breast 
Of  lovers  when  the  love- tide  nears  its  flood, 
Yet  touched  with  endless  potency  of  pain, 
As  lips  of  mothers  when  their  anguish  ebbs 
And  leaves  the  waifling  life.      Then  first  the 

Dove 


THE    MASQUE    OP    JUDGMENT 

Began  to  mourn  above  the  mercy-seat, 

And  the  dear  sister  spirits  of  the  Lamps 

Bent  all  their  shimmering  wings  one  way  to 

screen 
Their  wicks  from  the  wind-flaw.     Large  with 

question  turned 

Angelic  eyes  to  archangelic  eyes, 
Archangels  laid    changed  lips  to  the    ears  of 

Thrones, 

Thrones  gazed  at  Dominations,  Powers  made  sign 
To  Principalities  ;  but  not  one  dared, 
Voicing  the  fear  that  filled  him,  to  cry,  "Lord, 
What  hast  Thou  brought  upon  Thy  kingdom, 

Thou 
Ancient  of  Days ! ' '     Their   silence  was  right 

well. 

Raphael. 

All  this  the  meditative  spirits  oft 

Have  pondered.     But  thy  meaning  still  is  dark. 

Uriel. 
Ourselves  who  questioned  why  the  world  was 

made 

Were  born  of  the  same  questionable  seed, 
And  we  who  feared  were  the  first  cause  of  fear. 
Of  a  dark  thing  I  speak  a  few  dark  words. 
Of  old  the  mind  of  God,  coiled  on  itself 

8 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

In  contemplation  single  and  eterne, 
Felt  suddenly  a  stealing  wistfulness 
Sully  the  essence  of  his  old  content 
With  pangs  of  dim  division.     Long  He  strove 
Against  his  bosom's  deep  necessity, 
Then,  groping  for  surcease,  put  forth  the  orbs 
Of  Paradise,  with  all  their  imagery, 
And  the  ordered  hierarchies  where  we  stand  ; 
Some  sharing  more  in  his  essential  calm, 
Some,  rebel  spirits,  banished  now  or  quelled, 
The  ill-starred  sons  of  his  disquietude, — 
Disquietude  not  quenched  when  fell  the  pride 
Of  Lucifer,  long  bastioned  in  the  North. 
Demand  of  joy,  hardly  to  be  gainsaid, 
And  vast  necessity  of  grief,  still  worked 
Compulsive  in  his  breast :  our  essence  calm, 
Those  lucid  orbs  accordant,  could  not  bring 
Nepenthe  long.     His  hand  He  still  withheld 
Ages  of  ages,  fearing  the  event, 
Till,  bathed  in  brighter  urge  and  wistfulness 
He  put  forth  suddenly  this  vine  of  Time 
And  hung   the    hollow    dark  with    passionate 
change. 

Raphael. 

I  think  for  me  Heaven  seemed  not  Heaven  till 

then, 
When  from  our  seats  of  peace  we  could  behold 

9 


THE    MASQUE    OP    JUDGMENT 

The  strife  of  ripening  suns  and  withering  moons, 

Marching  of  ice-floes,  and  the  nameless  wars 

Of  monster  races  laboring  to  be  man  j 

When  we  could  hear  the  wrestle  of  hoarse  sound 

Hurl  gust  on  gust  obscurely  toward  the  time 

Of  disinvolvM  music :  till  at  last, 

Standing  erect  amid  the  giant  fern  — 

Uriel. 

At  last !    At  last !    O  shaken  Breast,  nowhere 
Couldst  thou  find  quiet  save  in  putting  forth 
This  last  imagination  ?    Could  no  form 
Of  being  stanch  thee  in  thy  groping  thought 
Save  this  of  Man?    Puny  and  terrible ; 
Apt  to  imagine  powers  beyond  himself 
In  wind  and  lightning ;  cunning  to  evoke 
From  mould  and  flint-stone  the  surprising  fire, 
And  carve  the  heavy  hills  to  spiritual  shapes 
Of  town  and  temple ;  nursing  in  his  veins 
More  restlessness  than  called  him  from  the  void, 
Perfidies,  hungers,  dreams,  idolatries, 
Pain,  laughter,  wonder,  anger,  sex,  and  song ! 

Raphael. 
God  had  one  other  thought,  more  sweet,  more 

dire; 
Thy  latest  words  remind  thee. 

10 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

(Behind  the  trees  a  girl's  voice  sings :  — ) 
O  daughters  of  Jerusalem  ! 
What  said  ye  unto  her 
Who  took  her  love  by  the  garment's  hem, 
Where  the  tanned  grape-gatherers  were  ? 
Did  any  go  down  and  see 
If  she  led  him  into  her  house  ? 
Or  was  it  aloft  where  the  wild  harts  flee, 
Was  it  high  in  the  hills, '  neath  the  cedar- tree, 
That  she  kissed  him  and  called  him  spouse  ? 

(A  young  man  and  a  girl  come  over  the  hill  from 
the  town. ) 

UrieL  Unto  man 

Woman  was  due.     To  hearts  of  fire  more  fire, 
To  pride  of  strength  a  still  subduing  strength. 

(As  they  pass  through  the  coppice,  the  girl  sings : — ) 
O  keepers  of  the  city  walls ! 
Have  ye  taken  her  veil  away, 
Whose  hasting  feet  and  low  love-calls 
Ye  heard  at  the  drop  of  day  ? 
Have  ye  taken  her  ankle-rings, 
Who  is  fair,  who  hath  eyes  like  a  dove  ? 
Must  she  seek  her  lover,  her  king  of  kings, 
Naked,  stripped  of  her  costly  things  I 
Must  she  have  no  garment  but  love  1 

11 


SCENE   II. 

A  mountain  glade  and  forest.     Midnight. 

Shepherd. 

Here  stand,  if  thou  wilt  see,  by  this  great  bole. 
This  way  they  passed,  and  hither  should  return. 
But  pray  thee,  gentle  god,  when  they  draw  near 
Abate  the  splendor  of  thy  face,  fold  close 
Thine  eyed  and  irised  plumage.     God  thou  art, 
But  thou  must  needs  be  mighty  to  escape 
The  hill  girls  when  they  rage !    From  these  old 

boughs 

The  climbing  moon  will  soon  pour  deeper  shade 
To  screen  thee  more. 

Raphael. 
How  looked  they  when  they  passed  ? 

Shepherd  Boy. 

Coney,  how  passed  the  hailstorm  o'er,  quotha ! 
Patter !  patter  !  'twas  sung  beneath  i'  the  dark. 
I  lost  a  birch  cup  full  of  whortleberries 
Scrambling  to  cover  when  I  heard  their  songs. 
But  when  they  burst  across  the  glade,  I  peeped, 
And  saw  their  breasts  gleam  through  their  angry 
hair. 

12 


THE    MASQUE    OP    JUDGMENT 

Evoe  !  they  had  snared  the  village  lad 
They  hanker  for  so  long.     I  hear  them  talk, 
Dawdling  on  well- curbs  with  their  water- skins 
Or  picking  the  May-apples. 

Shepherd. 

'Tis  the  lad 

Who  sat  mute  at  the  merry  threshing-stead, 
Turned  from  their  orgies  in  the  sacred  wood 
With  large  bright  eyes  unamorous,  and  sang 
In  lonesome  places  piercing  lonesome  songs 
Of  other  lives  and  other  gods  than  theirs  — 
Perchance  of  thee  and  thy  bright- winged  mates, 
If  mates  be  thine,  for  god  thou  surely  art. 

Shepherd  Boy. 

To-night  they  have  him  limed !    Brow  of  the 

hawk, 
Throat  of  the  hermit- thrush,  and  ring-dove  eyes  ! 

Shepherd. 
He  came  across  the  moon-drench  dragged  by 

three 

Whose  bodies  shone  like  the  peeled  willow  wand  ; 
The  little  snakes  they  knot  into  their  hair 
Lipping  his  neck,  where  oozed  the  red  of  grapes 
From  his  crushed  garland  ;  his  hands  flung  aloft 

13 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

To  the  symbol  of  their  fierce  licentious  god. 
His  eyes  were  large  and  fixed,  his  lips  apart, 
As  I  have  seen  him  in  the  lonesome  woods, 
But  madder  than  the  maddest  bacchant  there  ! 

Raphael. 
Who  cometh  yonder  ! 

Shepherd. 
Where? 

Raphael. 

Across  the  glade. 

Shepherd. 
I  see  nought. 

Raphael. 

There,  behind  the  trailing  mist. 
The  moonlight  gathers  to  a  ghostly  shape, 
Unearthly  silver,  throbbing  like  a  heart ! 
It  seems  a  beast  and  rider. 

(The  shepherds  make  off. ) 

Ah,  I  know 

That  icy  influence,  and  the  voice  I  know, 
First  heard  in  Heaven  when  time  began  to  be, — 
A  voice  above  our  voices,  and  a  hush 
Beneath  our  hush,  freezing  the  heart  with  fear, 
With  fear  the  heart  even  of  spirit-kind.  .  .  . 

14 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

The  Angel  of  the  Pale  Horse  (sings). 

The  scourge  of  the  wrath  of  God 

We  swing  and  we  stay  : 

(Rest,  my  steed,  rest  /) 

On  the  green  of  the  hill  we  have  trod, 

And  the  green  is  grey. 

Ours  is  his  scourging  rod. 

Tea,  thy  hoofs  long  to  be  fleet 

On  the  annied  hills ; 

(  Yet  rest,  my  steed,  rest  /) 

Scent  of  the  arrowy  sleet 

Broadens  thy  nostrils ; 

The  mown  field  smelleth  sweet. 

God  giveth  his  loins'  increase 

Into  our  hand ; 

(Best,  my  steed,  rest  /) 

We  shall  establish  his  peace 

By  sea  and  by  land. 

Soon  shall  their  troubling  cease ! 

Raphael. 
What  makes  thine  errand  here! 

Angel  of  the  Pale  Horse. 

Still  as  of  old. 
15 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Raphael. 
I  think  thou  art  way- wandered.     Here  is  life. 

Angel  of  the  Pale  Horse 
My  horse's  feet  err  not ;  they  are  way- wise. 

Raphael. 

Stand  by  me  in  the  shade  of  these  old  boughs, 
And  let  no  anger  fan  thy  wings  alight 
Or  flake  the  nostrils  of  thy  horse  with  fire 
When  the  young  bacchants    halloo  down  the 

steep. 

Angel  of  the  Pale  Horse. 

Thou  feedest  thy  giddy  and  half- human  mind 
Still  on  these  little  spectacles  of  change, 
Forgetting  Heaven's  great  woes  ! 

Raphael. 

What  woe  can  come 
Into  those  courts  of  old  oeatitude  ? 

Angel  of  the  Pale  Horse. 
Hast  thou  not  felt  its  presence  there  1 

Raphael. 

Yes — nay  — 

I  know  not .  .  .  When  I  enter  Heaven  gate, 
Fear  comes  upon  me,  for  I  seem  to  feel 

16 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Some  subtle  waning  of  accustomed  joy, 
Some  dying  off  of  music  —  thin,  minute, 
As  the  single  cricket  amid  chorusing  fields, 
Whose  ceasing  breaks  the  rapture.     Often,  too, 
Wan  faces  shun  me  in  the  woods  of  light 
And  voices  of  vague  dolor  die  away 
Along  the  living  lilies  as  I  come. 
But  this  I  held  a  phantasy  of  dream, 
Bred  of  too  earnest  looking  on  the  blight 
That  falls  on  mortal  things. 

Angel  of  the  Pale  Horse. 

It  is  no  dream ; 

Though  more  mysterious,  more  dark  than  dream. 
Momently  fades  the  splendor,  momently 
Silence  and  dissonance  like  eating  moths 
Scatter  corruption  on  the  choiring  orbs. 

Raphael. 
No  one  declares  the  cause  ? 

Angel  of  the  Pale  Horse. 

The  cause  is  here, — 

Here  in  the  vagrant  courses  of  the  moon, 
Who  makes  her  lair  and  wanders  for  her  love 
After  her  own  loose  law  ;  in  yonder  stars, 
Gay  spendthrifts  of  their  plenitude  of  fire  ; 
In  this  most  dissolute  earth,  who  decks  herself 

17 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

With  gorgeous  phantasy  and  delicate  whim, 
And  paces  forth  before  the  worlds  to  dance 
A  maiden  measure,  modest  lids  downcast 
To  hide  her  harlot's  guile  ;  but  more  than  these, 
And  more  than  all,  unutterably  more, 
Here  in  the  wild  and  sinful  heart  of  man, — 
Of  all  the  fruits  upon  creation's  vine 
The  thirstiest  one  to  drain  the  vital  breast 
Of  God,  wherein  it  grows. 

Raphael. 

Too  fiery  sweet 

Gushes  the  liquor  from  the  vine  He  set, 
Man  the  broad  leaf  and  maid  the  honeyed  flower ! 

( The  shepherds  creep  batik,  and  stand  peering  from 
behind  the  tree  at  the  angels. ) 

Raphael  (musing). 

"What  if  they  rendered  up  their  wills  to  His  f 
Hushed  and  subdued  their  personality  f 
Became  as  members  of  the  living  tree? 

Angel  of  tJie  Pale  Horse. 

A  whisper  grows,  various  from  tongue  to  tongue, 
That  so  He  will  attempt.     Those  who  consent 
To  render  up  their  clamorous  wills  to  Him, 

18 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

To  merge  their  fretful  being  in  his  peace, 
He  will  accept :  the  rest  He  will  destroy. 

{The  loy  whispers  to  Rapliael.} 

Raphael. 
What  wilt  thou,  little  friend  ? 

Shepherd  Boy. 

Hither,  sweet  god  !    But  let  the  ghostly  centaur 
stay  behind. 

Shepherd. 

Lean  o'er  this  rock  and  look  into  the  gorge. 
See  how  their  torches  dip  from  ledge  to  ledge. 
They  race  beside  some  shape  the  torrent  bears  : 
The  eddies  seize  it  now,  and  leaning  out 
Over  the  pool  they  stop  to  howl  their  hymns, 
And,  now  it  plunges,  how  they  madden  down 
With  laughter  keen  above  the  drumming  foam  ! 

Raphael. 
Is't  not  a  man's  torn  trunk? 

Shepherd  Boy. 

See  those  behind 

Grasping  the  antlers  of  the  lunging  stag, 
That  bellows  when  their  torches  bite  his  flanks  ! 
I  know  the  witch  who  rides  him  ! 

19 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Raphael. 

Come  away ! 

That  is  a  bleeding  head  she  holds  aloft 
Above  the  clutching  of  her  comrades'  hands  ! 

Shepherd  Boy. 

No  more  thou'lt  shun  their  orgies  in  the  wood, 
Throat  of  the  hermit-thrush  and  ring-dove  eyes  ! 
Throat  of  the  mourning  thrush,  thy  songs  are 

done  j 
Sad  ring-dove  eyes,  the  lids  have  shut  you  in  ! 

Shepherd. 

That  is  his  harp  the  dancers  bear  before, 
Mocking  his  solemn  songs  of  other  gods 
And  other  lives  than  theirs. 

Raphael  (musing). 

Those  who  consent 
He  will  accept :  the  rest  he  will  destroy  ! 

Shepherd  Boy. 
Look  !  look  !  the  ghostly  centaur  goeth  down. 


20 


A  C  T     I. 


Time  :  as  in  the  Prelude 


Persons  of  the  Masque 


RAPHAEL 
URIEL 
MICHAEL 
AZAZIEL 

THE  ANGEL  OF  THE  PALE  HORSE 
THE  ANGEL   OF  THE  WHITE  HORSE 
THE  ANGEL  OF  THE  RED   HORSE 
SPIRITS  OF  THE  THRONE-LAMPS 
THE  LION  OF  THE  THRONE 
THE  EAGLE  OF  THE  THRONE 
THE  ANGEL   OF  THE  TREE  OF  KNOWLEDGE 
SPIRITS  OF  THE  SAVED 
SPIRITS  OF  THE  LOST 
MOON-SPIRITS 
VOICES 


22 


ACT   I.      SCENE   I. 

A  high  mountain  pass,  down  which  flows  a  brook, 
with  pools  and  waterfalls.     Early  morning. 

Raphael  (climbing,  sings). 
On  earth  all  is  well,  all  is  well  on  the  sea  ; 
Though  the  day  breaks  dull 
All  is  well. 

Ere  the  thunder  had  ceased  to  yell 
I  flew  through  the  wash  of  the  sea 
Wing  and  wing  with  my  brother  the  gull. 
On  the  crumbling  comb  of  the  swell, 
With  the  spindrift  slashing  to  lee, 
Poised  we ; 

The  petrel  thought  us  asleep 
Till  sidewise  round  on  stiffened  wing, 
Keen  and  taut  to  take  the  swing 
With  the  glass-green  avalanches  in  their  swerv- 
ing plunge  and  sweep, 
Down  the  glassy,  down  the  prone, 
Swift  as  swerving  thunder-stone, 
We  shot  the  green  crevasses 
And  we  hallooed  down  the  passes 
Of  the  deep. 

On  earth  all  is  well,  all  is  well. 

In  the  weeds  of  the  beach  lay  the  shell 

23 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

With  the  sleeper  within, 

And  the  pulse  of  the  sleeper  showed  through 

The  walls  of  his  delicate  house 

That  will  wake  with  the  sun  into  silver  and 

purple  and  blue. 

Where  the  creek  makes  out  and  the  sea  makes  in 
Between  the  low  cliff-brows 
Was  borne  the  talk  of  the  aldered  linn 
Matching  the  meadow's  subtile  din ; 
And  hark,  from  the  grey  high  overhead 
The  lark's  keen  joy  was  shed  ! 
For  what  though  the  morning  sulky  was 
And  the  punctual  sun  belated, 
His  nest  was  snug  in  the  tufted  grass, 
Soft-lined  and  stoutly  plaited, 
And  shine  sun  may  or  stay  away 
Nests  must  be  celebrated  ! 

Drowsy  with  dawn,  barely  asail, 
Buzzes  the  blue-bottle  over  the  shale, 
Scared  from  the  pool  by  the  leaping  trout ; 
And  the  brood  of  turtlings  clamber  out 
On  the  log  by  their  oozy  house. 
Bound  the  roots  of  the  cresses  and  stems  of  the  ferns 
The  muskrat  goes  by  dodges  and  turns  ; 
Till  she  has  seized  her  prey  she  heeds  not  the 
whine  of  her  mouse. 

24 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Lovingly,  spitefully,  each 

Kind  unto  kind  makes  speech  ; 

Marriage  and  birth  and  war,  passion  and  hunger 

and  thirst, 
Song  and  plotting  and  dream,  as  it  was  meant 

from  the  first ! 

(He  climbs  higher,  and  sings. ) 

Peering  in  the  dust  I  thought 
"How  all  creatures,  small  and  great, 
For  his  pleasure  God  hath  wrought ! " 

When  I  saw  the  robins  mate 
Low  I  sang  unto  my  harp, 
"Happy,  happy,  His  estate  ! 

"Down  curved  spaces  He  may  warp 
With  old  planets  ;  long  and  long, 
Where  the  snail  doth  tease  and  carp, 

"Asking  with  its  jellied  prong, 
A  whole  summer  He  may  bide, 
Wondrous  tiny  lives  among, 
Curious,  unsatisfied." 

(Still  climbing. ) 

The  trees  grow  stunted  in  this  keener  air, 
And  scarce  the  hardiest  blossoms  dare  to  take 
Assurance  from  the  sun.     Southward  the  rocks 

25 


Boast  mosses  and  a  poor  increase  of  flowers, 
But  all  the  northern  shelters  hold  their  snow. 
Such  flowers  as  come,  come  not  quite  flower- 
like, 

But  smitten  from  their  gracious  habitudes 
By  some  alarm,  some  vast  and  voiceless  cry 
That  just  has  ceased  to  echo  ere  I  came. 
These  white  buds  stand  unnaturally  white, 
Breathing  no  odors  till  their  terror  pass  ; 
Those  grey  souk  toss  their  arms  into  the  wind, 
Peer  through  their  locks  with  bright  distracted 

eyes 

And  hug  the  elfin  horror  to  their  breasts  — 
Poor  brain-turned  gypsy  wildlings,  doomed  to 

birth 

In  this  uneasy  region  !  .  .  .  Yonder  lift 
The  outposts  of  the  habitable  land. 
Ages  of  looking  on  the  scene  beyond 
Have  worn  the  granite  into  shapes  of  woe 
And  old  disaster. 

(lie  climbs  higher ,  to  where  the  ravine  debouches 
into  the  Valley  of  the  Judgment. ) 

Each  time  when  I  stand 
Upon  the  borders  of  this  monstrous  place, 
I  still  must  question  wherefore  it  was  flung 
Thus  ruinous  with  toppled  peak  and  scaur, 

26 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Sheer  from    the  morning  cliffs    that  hold  up 

Heaven 

To  nether  caverns  where  no  foot  of  man 
Has  clambered  down,  nor  eye  of  angel  dared 
To  spy  upon  the  sluggish  denizens, 
If  any  dwell  so  deep.     What  giant  plow 
Harnessed  to  behemoth  and  mastodon 
Set  this  slope  furrow  down  the  side  of  the  world  ? 
And  to  what  harvest?  .  .  .  Here  the  sons  of 

men, 

Living  and  dead  and  yet  unborn,  might  come 
Unto  the  final  judgment ;  here  the  lost 
Might    make    one   desperate    stand.  .  .  .  What 

moveth  there? 

What  leonine  and  winged  shape  is  he 
Steals  up  yon  gorge  all  desolate  of  light 
Whence  voices  of  fierce-tongued  and  desperate 

streams 
Sound  faint  as  throats  of  nooning  doves?    Till 

now 

Never  have  I  beheld  a  living  thing 
Amid  these  wastes.     What  manner  beast  is  he 
That  he  hath  power  to  awe  me,  though  removed 
So  far  the  fallen  vastness  of  a  cliff 
Wherefrom  a  temple  might  be  quarried,  looks 
Fit   for    a    shepherd's    sling?  .  .  .  Surely    he 

comes 

27 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

From  nameless  battle  yonder  in  the  depths ; 
But  whither  steals  he  homeward  there  aloft! 
What  lair  is  his  cloud-hidden  in  the  snows, 
Whose  mates  and  loves  wait  'neath  the  desert 

palms 

To  hear  him  tell  his  deed?    Huge  was  the  fight 
That  left  that  mighty  prowess  broken  so  ! 
For  sorely  is  he  broken  :  now  he  stops 
And  lies  exhausted  by  an  icy  pool, 
Now  labors  up  the  shale,  skirts  the  bald  top, 
Drops    with    fierce    caution   down  the  further 

slope 
Eyeing    the   next  hard    pass.     I  wonder  .  .  .  ? 

No 

Strange  !  'twas  a  blood- drop  fell  upon  that  flower 
A-tremble  from  the  brink.     Another  here 
Upon  the  ground- moss — nay,  upon  my  hand  — 
It  falls  all  round  me  !  .  .  .  {Looking  upward) 

Ah,  an  eagle  goes 

Lame  from  the  battle,  mate  or  duellist 
Of  him  who  crept  by  yonder.     Even  here 
I  see  the  vast  wings,  shattered  and  unpenned, 
Almost  refuse  their  labor  ;  now  he  swerves 
To  rest  upon  a  needled  dolomite, 
Then  upward  grievously  another  stage 
Toward  some  sad  eyrie  where  his  heart  abides. 

28 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

I  too  must  seek  my  eyrie  —  sad  enough, 
Since  there  my  heart  abides  not  any  more, 
Amid  the  waste  infinitudes  of  light 
Missing  the  flow  of  day,  the  refluent  dark  ; 
Amid  the  bliss  of  unconcerning  eyes 
Eemembering  woman's  anguish,  man's  resolve, 
Youth's    wistful     darling    guess,    kindled    and 

quenched 

And  quenched  and  kindled  yet  a  little  year 
In  eyes  too  frail  to  hold  their  meaning  long 
Where  chance  and  enmity  conspire  with  death. 

(He  flies  up  the  VaMey.) 


29 


ACT  I.      SCENE  II. 

Above  the  peaks  that  crown  the  head  of  the  Valley 
of  Judgment. 

Raphael  (flying). 

Soon  will  the  cliffs  of  Heaven  give  easier  way, 
For  though  my  heart  grows  human,  yet  my  frame 
With  immaterial  things  accordance  keeps, 
And  to  my  feet  these  spiritual  hills 
Feel  native,  and  the  climate  kind  to  breathe  ; 
Still  kindlier  for  the  shredded  mist  of  song . 
That  wanders  here  at  morning  and  at  eve 
Whispering  witless  words  and  prophecy. 

Voices  (above). 

Through  the  vines  of  tangled  light 
In  the  jungles  of  the  sun 
Swept  the  Hunter  in  his  might 
And  his  lion-beagle  dun 
Gaped  for  prey  to  left  and  right. 

O'er  the  passes  of  the  moon 
Strode  the  Hunter  in  his  wrath  : 
The  eagle  sniffed  the  icy  noon, 
" Master,  knowest  thou  the  path! 
Shall  we  meet  thy  foe-man  soon  f 

30 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

"  On  what  interstellar  plain, 
'Mid  what  comet's  blinding  haze, 
Storm  of  star  dust,  meteor  rain, 
Shall  we  spy  his  crouching  gaze, 
Leap  at  him,  and  end  thy  pain? " 

Peace  is  on  the  heavenly  meres, 
Sabbath  lies  on  Paradise ; 
But  the  little  Throne-lamp  fears, 
For  she  sees  the  Master's  eyes, 
And  she  tastes  the  Master's  tears. 

Eaphael. 

Many  an  age  your  song  has  hovered  round 
This  theme  of  Heaven's  distress.     What  mean  ye 

now? 

"Was  that  the  lion-hound  of  which  ye  sing 
Crept  wounded  hither,  masterless,  this  hour  ? 

Voices  (as  before). 
Where  had  his  gadding  spirit  led? 
Beside  what  peopled  water-head 
Stooped  he,  or  on  what  sleeping  face 
Was  he  intent  the  dream  to  trace  ? 
Had  creature  love  upon  him  fawned 
Or  had  he  drunk  of  mortal  mirth 
That  he  knew  not  what  a  morning  dawned 

31 


Over  his  darling  earth  ? 
Heard  not  the  storm,  heard  not  the  cries, 
Heard  not  the  talk  of  the  startled  skies 
Over  the  guilty  earth  1 

Raphael. 

Those  dubious  voices  fade,  and  in  their  stead 
Succeeds  a  sound  more  anxious  and  perturbed, 
Voices  and  mutterings  of  supernal  wrath 
Or  whisperings  of  fear.  .  .  .  Ah,  there  aloft 
Upon  the  beetling  rosy  crag  they  stand, 
The  pale  horse  and  the  white  horse  and  the 

red ! 

What  rage  vermilions  his  expanded  wing  ? 
Why  streams  his  mane  so  fiery  on  the  wind 
Back  from  h'is  staring  eyeballs?  What  should 

make 

His  brother's  steady  candor  pulse  and  throb 
And  falter  like  the  light  on  cavern  walls 
Eocked  under  by  the  tide  ?    O  never  yet 
Did  the  pale  horse  seem  terrible  as  now, 
Pawing  the  margent  cliff  and  snorting  down 
Pale  fire  into  the  Valley  !  .  .  .  Brothers,  hail ! 
I  fare  from  outland.     Tell  me  what  befalls. 

Angel  of  the  White  Horse. 
He  strays  too  much  abroad.     He  hath  not  heard. 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Angel  of  the  Pale  Horse. 

They  say  that  he  has  lived  too  much  in  the  sun 
And  waxes  mortal,  mortal.     We  shall  see. 

Angel  of  the  Red  Horse. 
Saw'st  thou  aught  stirring  in  the  valley  deeps? 

Raphael. 

Far  down  below  a  beast  crept  wounded  hither. 
Why  gaze  ye  on  each  other  thus  aghast  t 

Angel  of  the  Red  Horse. 
Cast  ye  that  way  —  the  passes  and  denies  ! 
This  way  will  I. 

(The  Angels  of  the  Horses  disappear.) 

Raphael. 

What  news  has  spread  concern 
Even   to  these  marks    and    purlieus  of   God's 
dream  ? 

Below  the  sun's  pale  rim  a  paleness  moves, 
Grows  larger,    blots    the    disc  with  deepening 

light.  .  .  . 

And  now  above  the  Valley  treads  a  shape 
Too  lordly  to  be  aught  but  Uriel ! 

33 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Poised  on  a  peak  he  halts  to  gaze  behind  ; 
Now  wingeth  nearer,  in  the  Eagle's  track  — 

Uriel  {approaching}. 
Hail,  brother. 

Raphael. 

Hail !  Saw'st  thou  the  fight  below? 

Uriel. 

Of  what  I  saw  I  cannot  spell  the  sense, 
Too  darkly  hid  for  me  ! 

Eaphael. 

Share  me  at  least 
Thy   news,    though    scant.     That    winged    and 

brindled  bulk, 

Whence  came  it  and  what  quarry  did  it  seek  f 
And  the  great  eagle,  was  it  mate  or  foef 

Uriel. 

No  earthly  beast  it  was,  no  earthly  bird, 
Seeking  no  earthly  quarry.    More  than  this 
I  know  not  how  to  say,  ere  I  have  mused 
Where  in  the  sun's  core  light  and  thought  are 
one. 

Eaphael. 

But  yet  conjecture  clamors  at  thy  heart. 
34 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Uriel. 

Thou    knowest  what  whispers    are    abroad   in 

Heaven ; 

How  God  pines  ever  for  his  broken  dream, 
Broken  by  vague  division,  whence  who  knows  ! 
And  pangs  of  restless  love  too  strong  to  quench 
Save  by  the  putting  of  creation  forth, — 
Quenched   then  but  for  a  moment,    since  the 

worlds 

He  made  to  soothe  Him  only  vex  Him  more, 
Being  compact  of  passion,  violent, 
Exceeding  quarrelsome,  and  in  their  midst 
Man  the  arch-troubler.     Fainter  whispers  say 
He  ponders  how  to  win  his  prodigal 
By  some  extremity  to  render  back 
The  heritage  abused,  to  merge  again 
Each  individual  will  into  His  will : 
Till  when,  his  pangs  increase. 

Raphael. 

A  nine  days'  tale. 
I  hold  Him  no  such  weakling  !      Yet .  .  .  and 

yet ... 

I  have  beheld ...  I  know  not .  .  .  pallor  couched 
On  brows  that  wont  to  beacon  ;  through  the  orbs 
Quivers     of    twilight,     hints     and    flecks    of 
change.  .  .  . 

35 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

We  cannot  be,  we  would  not  be,  I  deem, 
The  same  as  ere  space  was,  or  time  began 
To  trellis  there  life's  wild  and  various  bloom. 
—  "We  linger.     Let  me  hear. 

Uriel. 

Some  things  He  made 
Out  of  his  wistfulness,  his  ecstasy, 
And  made  them  lovely  fair ;  yet  other  some 
Out  of  his  loathing,  out  of  his  remorse, 
Out  of  chagrin  at  the  antinomy 
Cleaving  his  nature  ;  these  are  monstrous  shapes, 
Whereof  the  most  abhorred  one  dwells  below 
Within  the  caves  and  aged  wells  of  dark 
Toward  which  this  Valley  plunges.     There  it 

waits 
Hoarding  its  ugly  strength  till  time  be  full. 

Raphael. 
How  nam'st  thou  him  ? 

Uriel 

The  spirits  meditative 

Darkly  name  him  :  The  Worm  that  Dieth  not, — 
Perhaps  the  scourge  reserved  for  those  who  prove 
^Rebellious  in  the  event,  perhaps  himself 
Scourge  of  the  Scourger,  biding  but  his  hour 

36 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

To  'venge  his  miscreation.     So  lie  lies, 

A  thing  most  opposite  to  spirit-kind, 

Most  hated  by  the  Four  who  guard  the  Throne, 

Within  the  viewless  panoply  of  light 

Immediately  ministrant.     To  them, 

But  to  the  Lion  and  the  Eagle  most, 

Is  given  to  gaze  in  the  Eternal  eyes 

Like  hounds  about  a  hunter's  knee,  that  watch 

Each  passion  written  on  their  master's  brow, 

And  having  read  his  trouble,  steal  away 

To  taste  the  troubler's  flesh  beneath  their  fangs. 

So  stole  away  the  Lion  of  the  Throne, 

The  Eagle  for  his  aid.     Beneath  the  moon 

Last  night  I  came  upon  them  stealing  down, 

Too  eager  on  the  scent  to  mark  my  flight. 

Even  to  the  splintered  curb  of  the  last  profound 

I  followed,  and  thence  heard  the  battle  rage 

Bellowed  above  by  the  loath  elements, 

Till  dawn  showed  in  the  east,  an  ashen  dawn 

Clotted  and  drizzled  o'er  with  sullen  light. 

Raphael. 
Their  hearts  were  faithful.     They  were  fain  to 

save 

The  Master  from  some  sad  extremity.  .  .  . 
But  not  in  yonder  depths,  alas,  doth  lie 
The  arch-foe  of  his  peace.     Would  it  were  so  ! 

37 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

A  monster  bred  to  hatred  in  the  dark. 
"Would  it  were  so  !  not  rather,  as  we  fear, 
Man  the  uplifted  stature,  the  proud  mind, 
The  laughter ! 

Uriel. 

Speedily  our  doubt  shall  end, 
For  not  much  more  delayeth  the  event. 
—  My  watch  is  set  within  the  sun,  and  thither 
My  hour  constrains  me. 

Eaphael. 
Heavenward  I.     Farewell ! 


38 


ACT  I.      SCENE  III. 

A  garden  in  Heaven.  The  Eagle  sits  on  the  Tree 
of  Knowledge  ;  the  Lion  and  the  Angel  of  the  White 
Horse  rest  beneath. 


Angel  of  the  White  Horse. 

Deep  in  the  purple  umbrage  droops  the  bird, 
His  sick  eye  sealed  beneath  the  weary  lid 
Which  scarce  his  right  wing's  torn  and  gaping 

gold 

Disfeathered  hideth,  since  long  hours  ago 
He  sidewise  tucked  his  wounded  head  away, 
Shunning  the  light's  offence ;   and  through  the 

boughs 

Let  sink  this  mighty  pinion  sinister 
A  vast  and  ruined  length,  whereof  the  plumes 
That  yesterday  planed  sunlike  o'er  the  Throne 
Are  all  blood-rusted  now  and  misted  on 
"With  obscure  breathings  of  a  nadir  clime. 
Between  the  Lion's  paws  a  thousand  flowers 
Have  withered  since  he  laid  him  groaning  down, 
And  in  uneasy  slumber  racked  with  dreams 
Flingeth  at  whiles  a  sanguine  froth  abroad 
To  sear  what  rests  of  herbage  or  of  bloom 
Unwithered  by  his  breath.     They  saw  me  not 

39 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Though  close  I  tracked  them  up  the   cloudy 

heights, 
Nor  once  have  marked  me  through  the  exhausted 

hours 
While  here  I  wait  the  time  to  question  them. 

Hark  !  in  their  dreams  they  speak,  and  in  their 

dreams 
Do  act  again  their  awful  enterprise. 

The  Eagle. 

Creep  softly,  softly  !     Heaven's  streets  are  still, 
Each  seraph  sentry  drowseth  on  his  hill, 
The  winds  of  song  are  folded,  and  as  flowers 
Folded  are  all  the  domes  and  dreaming  towers. 
Creep  softly,  softly ;  I  am  with  thee,  mate ! 
Softly  I  soar  above  the  shrouded  gate, 
And  till  thou  comest  past  the  warding  swords 
Lone  in  the  outer  moonlight  I  will  wait. 

The  Lion. 

Wing  swiftly  !    For  the  walls  of  chrysopras 
Have  melted  at  my  roar  to  let  me  pass  ; 
But  Heaven  is  up  and  peers  with  mazed  eyes, 
And  wings  are  weighed  to  hinder  our  emprise. 
Wing  swiftly,  swiftly,  down  the  glooming  air, 
Past  cloud  and  precipice  and  mountain  stair, 

40 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

For  ere  another  morning  drowns  the  stars 
We  must  have  met  the  Worm  within  his  lair. 

The  Eagle. 

Drear  are  the  depths,  O  brother, 
Bitter  the  fight ! 
Vainly  we  stand  by  each  other. 
Thy  might  and  my  might 
Are  as  straw,  in  the  flame  and  the  smother. 

Angel  of  the  White  Horse. 
O  ye  familiars  benedite, 
Who,  hidden  in  the  eternal  glow, 
Keep  guard  about  the  Throne, 
What  things  were  given  to  your  sight 
Ere  to  the  hold  of  such  a  foe 
Ye  dared  to  venture  down  ? 

The  Lion  (awaking). 
Ages  and  ages  we  gazed, 
Stricken  at  heart  and  amazed, 
Till  the  morning  look 
From,  His  brow  was  strook, 
Silver  and  vair 
In  the  flame  of  his  hair 
And  his  lip  with  anguish  crazed. 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

"My  heart  must  unburden  its  hate. 

I  will  walk  through  the  pathless  woods 

Where  the  wild  stars  hatch  their  broods, 

I  will  girdle  the  steppes 

Where  the  meteor  creeps 

Like  a  slug  on  the  rimy  sward. 

Perhaps  at  the  trampled  brink 

Where  the  Bear  goes  down  to  drink, 

Perhaps  where  on  the  purple  leas 

Dance  the  young  Pleiades, 

Somewhere  at  length 

I  shall  laugh  in  my  strength 

Spying  the  Shape  abhorred, 

Somewhere  at  last 

I  shall  break  my  fast 

On  the  flesh  of  the  Foe  of  the  Lord  ! " 

The  Eagle. 

Wearily  thou  crept' st  back 
Sore  from  the  track ; 

Thy  hide  was  torn  and  thy  tongue  was  black. 
Long  thou  did'st  slumber  and  deep. 

The  Lion. 

A  voice  came  in  my  sleep 
Saying,  "  Why  wander  so  far  ? 
Nearhand  lieth  the  earth 

42 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Full  of  rumors  of  war, 

Of  passion  and  pride  no  dearth. 

There  in  his  cavern  cold 

Lurketh  the  Dragon  old  ; 

He  lies  and  pastures,  plain  to  see, 

On  God's  heart,  sluggishly, 

As  once  he  sucked  of  the  fruits  of  gold 

Ages  ago,  on  the  Eden  tree. 

Angel  of  the  White  Horse. 
Hearken  !     A  wind  walks  in  the  Tree 
Though  the  lily- heads  are  still, 
From  bough  to  bough  inscrutably 
It  feeleth  out  its  will ; 
And  now  the  leaves,  atremble  long, 
Utter  impulsive  song. 

The  Angel  of  the  Tree. 

Not  in  the  loosened  whirlwinds  that  invade 
The  sun's  white  core  with  shade, 
Not  in  the  wandering  tribes  of  fire  that  sweep 
With  rapine  through  the  deep, 
Not  in  the  venom  of  the  caverned  Worm 
That  drowseth  out  his  term, 
Nay,  not  in  these  or  aught  akin  to  these 
Consisteth  of  God's  groaning  and  disease 
The  incorporeal  germ. 

43 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Though  all  that  He  hath  made 

Rebels  and  is  exceeding  turbulent, 

Though  all  his  loins'  increase 

Go  after  pleasures  other  than  He  meant, 

And  with  excessive  claims 

Drain  and  defile  the  founts  of  his  content, — 

Yet  only  one  of  all  the  shapes  He  brought 

Out  of  the  gulfs  of  thought, 

One  only  creature  of  his  quickening  hands 

Hath  from  its  brow 

With  reckless  laugh  and  with  reiterate  vow 

Stripped  clean  away  all  decencies  and  shames ; 

Till  with  continual  strife 

And  divagant  demands 

Of  separate  life, 

The  searching  and  the  scornful  heart  of  Man 

God's  inmost  being  maims. 

The  Eagle. 

For  naught  have  my  wings  been  broken, 
Vain  are  the  wounds  of  thy  paws  ! 
Hark  what  the  Tree  hath  spoken. 

Angel  of  the  Pale  Horse. 
Hush  !    For  a  murmur  shakes  the  bloom 
That  once  drank  Eden  dew, 
A  shadowed  wind  like  a  word  of  doom 
Darkens  the  branches  through. 

44 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

The  Angel  of  the  Tree. 
Now  draweth  on  the  time  declared  of  old 
When  He  shall  make  division  of  the  fold, 
Shall  winnow  out  the  kernels  from  the  chaff, 
Shall  tread  his  grapes,  and  in  a  silver  cup 
Chalice  the  good  wine  up 
And  cast  away  the  pummace  and  the  draff. 

Too  long  and  much  too  long 
He  hath  endured  his  wrong. 
A  little  vine  of  life  He  set  to  grow 
Not  far  off  from  the  footstool  of  his  feet, 
That  it  might  be  in  spring  a  pleasant  show 
Of  budding  charities, 

In  autumn  clothe  itself  with  temperate  sweet 
Of  love's  long-mellowing  fruit 
So  mild  the  angel  youth  might  pluck  and  eat 
Xor  feel  the  mortal  savor  trouble  shoot 
Across  their  holy  ease. 
But  now  the  vine, 

Grown  waste  and  riotous,  has  sent  its  root 
With  monstrous  loop  and  twine 
In  circles  nine  times  nine 
About  the  bowels  of  his  holy  hill, 
And  million-fold  its  mouth 
Has  drunk  his  songful  springs  and  quenched  his 
veins  with  drouth. 

45 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Twelve  shapes  of  sculptured  dream 

On  Heaven's  twelve  gateways  gleam, 

Jasper,  chalcedony,  and  jade, 

Beryl  and  lazuline ; 

And  there-amid  the  rank  leaves  of  the  vine 

Earthy  and  lush 

At  morn  with  laughter  push, 

At  evening  droop  and  fade. 

Its  carnal  fruits  are  insolently  laid, 

With  stealth  and  hasty  birth, 

Even  in  God's  streets  and  in  his  garden  bowers, 

And  from  the  topmost  glory  of  his  towers 

Singeth  and  maketh  mirth 

The  exultation  of  its  sudden  flowers. 

Long  and  too  long  hath  his  compassion  shrunk 

From  laying  of  the  axe  unto  the  trunk  ; 

Nor,  though  the  blade  is  ground,  and  kindled 

white 

The  furnace,  will  He  quite 
Even  now, 

Even  now,  though  day  is  late, 
Utterly  burn  and  cast  into  the  slough 
The  thing  He  made  to  love  and  still  is  loath  to 

hate. 

But  first  He  will  put  off  eternity 
And  put  on  body  of  their  flowering  clay, 
That  thus  brought  near  He  may  familiarly 

46 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Close  in  each  ear  the  word  of  pleading  say. 

Each  blindling  heart  that  stubborns  all  astray 

Shall  hear  Him  calling  closer  than  the  blood 

That  both  its  ruby  gates  with  tumult  fills  ; 

And  to  the  wild  procession  of  their  wills 

Eaving  idolatrous  in  the  sacred  wood, 

His  voice  of  poignant  love 

Though  quiet  as  the  voice  of  dust  to  dust 

Shall  clearly  sound  above 

The  beaten  cymbal  and  the  shrewd-blown  shell, 

Saying  as  soft  as  rain, 

"The  gift  I  gave  I  fain  would  have  again, 

Ye  have  not  used  it  well ! 

Break  ye  the  thyrsus  and  the  phallic  sign, 

Put  off  the  ivy  and  the  violet, 

A  dearer  standard  shall  before  you  shine 

And  for  your  lustral  foreheads  ye  shall  twine 

A  fairer  garland  yet, 

When  the  processions  mild 

Shall  greet  you  and  behold  you  reconciled 

And  sing  you  home  across  the  deathless  asphodel. 

But  ye  who  will  not  so, 

Take  up  the  phallus  and  the  wreathed  snake, 

Let  the  wine  flow, 

And  let  the  mountains  echo  to  your  yell. 

Your  ways  lie  by  the  burning  of  the  lake 

Long  kindled  for  your  sake  : 

47 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Be  ye  not  slow, 
But  go 

Urging  your  panther  teams  through  the  wide 
woods  of  Hell  !» 


48 


ACT    II. 


Time:  during  and  immediately   after  the  Crucifixion 


ACT   II. 

T  he  outlying  plains  of  Heaven.    Storm  and  darkness. 

Raphael. 

But  now  the  air  was  thick  with  panic  shades 
Who  made  no  answer  when  I  cried  to  them 
Across  the  vortices  of  spiritual  dark. 
Upon  what  stricken  plain  have  I  been  flung, 
Whose  miscreations  blot  with  leaves  like  hands 
The  far  horizon  light  1    Some  glow-worm  ghost 
Flees  yonder,  pauses,  turns,  and  flees  again  : 
A  woman  spirit,  by  the  anguish  sweet 
Wakes  in  me  at  her  anguish.     Sister,  hear  ! 

The  Spirit  of  the  Throne-Lamp. 
O  Light  undiinmed,  if  thou  art  powerful, 
Speak  to  the  wind !     For  see,   my  wings  are 

torn 
And  shelter  not  my  lamp  :  'tis  almost  spent. 

Raphael. 

Me  too  the  wind  afflicts.     Together  thus 
Our  wings  will  shield  the  flame.     Already,  see, 
It  climbs  and  steadies  in  the  crystal  bowl, 
And  purges  half  the  terror  from  thine  eyes, 

51 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Thou  love-lamp   of  the  Lord  !     Are  these  his 

storms  f 
By  his  allowance  are  we  thus  distraught  f 

The  Spirit  of  the  Lamp. 
His  throne  is  empty  and  Himself  is  gone. 

Raphael. 

Child,  fright  hath  crazed  thee.     Lean  thy  shak- 
ing breast 
On  mine  :  shut  out  the  terrifying  dark. 

The  Spirit  of  the  Lamp. 
He  died  with  grieving  o'er  the  world  He  made. 

Raphael. 

We  live  in  Him  ;  with  Him  shall  all  things  die. 
Bright  burns  thy  lamp  ;  take  heart,  and  tell  me 

soon 
What  hath  befallen  in  Heaven. 

The  Angel  of  the  Lamp. 

I  know  not  well. 
My  secret  lies  upon  my  heart  too  long.  .  .  . 

Raphael. 

Nay,  tremble  not.     Bather  look  out  and  see 
What  presence  comes  :  its  influence  makes  cheer ; 

52 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

?  Twill  be  some  spirit  glad  and  resolute. 

Put  by  thy  wings  and  look  ;  my  eyes  are  blind 

Watching  the  feverous  pulsings  of  thy  lamp. 

The  Angel  of  the  Lamp. 

'Tis  he  whose  tent  is  pitched  within  the  sun, 
But  hardly  glad,  no  longer  resolute. 
Even  Uriel's  lordly  light  the  wind  subdues. 

Raphael. 
Hail,  Uriel  ! 

The  Angel  of  the  Lamp. 
Hail! 

Uriel. 
Hail,  brother  !     Sister,  hail ! 

Raphael. 
Close,  lend  thy  breadth  of  wing!     Thou  art  a 

strength. 
Speak,  if  thou  knowest  what  has  come  to  pass. 

Uriel. 
Something    I    know,    and    hither    through  the 

storms 

That  vex  the  deeps  and  on  disastrous  shores 
Fling  all  frail  stars  that  coast  and  merchant 

there, 

53 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

I  come  to  learn  the  sequel  —  if  to  learn 
Be  mine,  in  such  a  matter. 

Raphael. 

Speak. 

The  Angel  of  the  Lamp. 

Oh,  speak ! 

Uriel. 

'Neath  pleached  boughs  and  vines  of  ancient  fire 
In  the  white  centre  of  the  sun  I  lay, 
And  watched  the  armies  of  young  seraphim 
Naked  at  play  on  the  candescent  plains, 
When  suddenly  the  skies  of  flaine  were  rent 
In  sunder,  and  the  plain  became  a  sea 
Whereon  the  whirlwind  walked  through  welter- 
ing lanes 

To  the  sun's  core.     With  pain  I  made  my  way 
'  Twixt  element  and  angry  element. 
Vast  shapes  of  gathering  and  dissolving  fire 
That  seemed  as  beast  and  bird,  and  awful  frames 
Of  shadow,  dubious  whether  bird  or  beast 
Or  fish  or  reptile,  hidden  until  now 
In  shifting  caverns  of  the  photosphere, 
Eose  up  across  my  path  ;  and  in  their  eyes 
Sat  fear,  and  on  their  limbs  astonishment. 

54 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

At  last,  long  battling  and  bewildered  oft, 
I  gained  the  solar  coasts.     Wide  round  I  saw 
Each  planet  passion-changed,  each  haggard  star 
Eeeling  from  flight  and  swoon,  and  the  great 

deep 
Toiled    like  a  runner's  heart    who  runs  with 

death. 

Calm  at  confusion's  centre  stood  the  Earth, 
A  spiritual  nimbus  round  her  brow 
Like  as  a  woman  angel-visited, 
Sightless  and  deaf  to  all  things  save  her  swoon 
And  her  heart's  solemn  hallelujah. 

The  Spirit  of  the  Lamp. 

Oh, 

What  hath  He  sent  upon  the  joyous  Earth? 
The  Earth  that  has  the  blue  and  little  flowers 
Thou  brought' st  me  once  to  wreath  my  lamp 

withal, 

Earth-lover  !  But  they  faded  very  soon, 
And  left  a  nameless  hunger  in  my  heart. 
Thy  Earth  was  chosen,  Eaphael !  Art  thou  glad  I 

Eaphael. 

Not  glad  nor  sorry,  sister,  since  not  yet 
I  know  the  meaning  of  our  brother's  words. 
Earth- wandering,  and  the  shows  of  restless  time, 

55 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Have  weighed  the  eyelids  of  my  spirit  down. 
Speak,  Uriel,  and  speak  plain.     What  followed 
then? 

Uriel. 

That  rapt  and  solemn  aspect  of  the  Earth 

Soon  drew  me  to  her  through  the  shuddering  air ; 

And  circling  swiftly  round  her  as  she  went 

I  neared  the  twilight  verge  that  dipped  toward 

night. 

Here  on  a  sunset  hill  I  stayed  my  wings. 
Babble  of  people  and  much  soldiery 
Poured  thence  into  their  city  gates  ;  the  place 
Was  steeped  in  level  splendor  after  storm, 
And  like  to  pillars  of  advancing  fire 
Three  trees  of  crucifixion  loomed,  whereon 
Three  men  hung  crucified,  one  beautiful 
Beyond  the  measure  of  Man's  flowering  clay, 
Conspicuous  o'er  the  world  placed  for  a  sign. 
Slowly  to  meet  my  gaze  the  dying  lids 
Were  lifted,  and  the  faint  eyes  swam  on  mine  — 

Raphael. 
Nay,  sister,  sink  not !     We  are  three  :  be  strong. 

The  Angel  of  the  Lamp. 

I  know  whose  eyes  swam  faint  on  thine  !     I  know 
The  sorrows  that  He  suffered  for  his  world, 

56 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Ere  ever  He  put  off  eternity 

And  put  on  clay,  to  be  by  hands  of  clay 

Hung  for  a  sign  ! 

Raphael. 

Above  the  pausing  wind 
Hearken  !  a  rush  of  pinions.     Who  are  these 
That  put  an  influence  in  this  bitter  air 
Like  Spring  when  she  comes  galliard  from  the 
south  ! 

Uriel. 

The  globe  of  amber  light  wherein  they  fly 
Goes  ashen  in  the  flaws.     That  ship  of  souls 
Tacks  in  the  wind's  teeth  and  is  blown  abroad 
Nigh    Heaven's    last    confines.     Now   it   veers 

again, 
And  groweth  larger  :  they  will  pass  this  way. 

Brother,  lift  up  thy  voice  and  sing  to  them. 
These  be  the  spirits  that  within  the  moon 
Wander  the  lucent  forests  ;  shy  are  they 
Amid  their  wood-thoughts  and  their  shy  love- 
thoughts, 

Only  by  song  their  minds  are  quickly  swayed. 
Wide  has  the  ocean  been  for  their  frail  wings, 
And  wild  the  panic  that  has  driven  them  forth 
From  their  still  lunar  isle.     Thy  song  shall  be 
A  kindly  net  to  snare  them  as  they  pass, 

57 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Eaphael  (sings). 

Shore-birds  wet  with,  deep-sea  dew, 
Fold  your  wings  and  stay  your  flight  $ 
Stay,  stay ! 
Long  was  the  way, 

Grieved  with  wind  is  your  tender  light, 
Stay,  till  our  love  rekindle  you. 

Wood-birds  that  through  lunar  glens 

Flood  the  noon  of  night  with  singing, 

Hearken,  hearken  ! 

OUT  minds  undarken : 

O'er  your  phosphor  forests  winging, 

Say,  what  shadow  scared  you  thence  I 

(The  moon-spirits  alight  in  a  circle  round  the  three 
angels. ) 

The  Spirit  of  the  Lamp. 
How  fair  they  must  have  been  ere  yet  their 

light 

Was  ruined  with  the  wind  and  flying  spume, 
Being  so  fair,  though  ruined  ! 

First  Moon- Spirit. 

Who  are  ye 
That  seem  so  safe  when  every  shaken  world 

58 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Voideth  its  tenantry,  and  even  those  stars 
That  keep  the  marches  and  strongholds  of  space 
Flee  with  affrighted  eyes  down  alien  deeps, 
Or  cling  to  the  necks  of   comets,  whispering 

words 

That  stop  them  in  their  courses,  though  they  be 
Violent  souls  and  outlaw. 

Uriel. 

We  are  such 

As  share  God's  sorrow  in  his  evil  time, 
And  wait  the  issue  of  the  desperate  draught 
He  drinks  this  hour  to  win  surcease  of  pain. 

Second  Moon-Spirit. 

Speak  simply  to  the  simple  ;  make  thy  words 
Accordant  to  our  minds  ;  our  element 
Is  the  moon's  meek,  unintellectual  day. 

Uriel. 
You  in  the  moon  have  felt  His  pangs  more 

near 
Than    may   the    passionate    dwellers   in  quick 

worlds 
Wrapped  in  their  own  hot    being ;    for  your 

sphere 
Has  cooled  the  angry  metal  in  its  veins, 

59 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Its  spent  volcanoes  utter  now  no  more 
Their  proud  and  hasty  meanings  j  age  by  age 
Your  world  tends  back  to  silence,  rendering  up 
Its  selfhood  and  control  into  his  hands 
Whence  it  rebelled,  like  all  his  prodigals, 
To  spend  the  hoard  of  fire  He  dowered  them 

with 

Too  rashly.     So  it  hangs,  a  doubtful  ground  : 
Now,  brooded  on  by  powers  of  heavenly  peace, 
It  goeth  darkling  and  your  hearts  are  dumb, 
Now,  caught  within  the  orbits  of  desire, 
It  gathers  ghostly  splendor ;  in  your  woods 
Old  rites  are  paid,  and  o'er  your  crystal  peaks, 
That    burn   at    the    heart    like    genie-haunted 

gems, 

Sweeps  revelry  so  wild  that  mortal  men, 
Shepherds  or  sailors,  gazing  half  a  night, 
Wander  at  dawn  brain-crazed. 

Third  Moon-Spirit. 

Angel,  we  wait, 

We  wait  with  trembling  till  thy  lips  declare 
This  present  hour's  disaster.     Whose  the  arm 
That  broke  our  steppes  in  twain,  and  from  the 

roots 

Of  cloven  hills  haled  shapes  of  former  men 
And  frames  of  monstrous  ravin,  ages  dead? 

60 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Whose  mouth  was  set  against  the  moon-children, 
To  blow  their  sheeny  pleasances  to  dust 
And  scare  them  from  their  world  f 

What  plains  are  these 
Whose  spiritual  pulse  of  light  and  dark 
Throbs  as  if  hope  and  terror  struggled  there  f 

Uriel. 

These  are  the  plains  of  heaven,  least  create 
Of  God's  creation,  nearest  to  his  hand 
When  He  would  discreate,  as  now  perchance, 
The  deeps  that  teem  with  rebel  energies 
Wanton,  unteachable,  intolerable, 
Whereof  the  soul  of  man,  though  meant  to  be 
His  dearest  pride  and  joy,  is  frowardest 
And  first  to  vex  him  :  were  Man's  will  subdued, 
The  rest  beneath  his  banners  soon  would  swarm. 
Long  hath  He  warned  and  pleaded,  but  to-day 
With  a  most  searching  bosom- whisper  pleads  ; 
For  in  their  likeness  clad  He  gives  Himself 
To  die  that  they  may  live,  accepting  Him, 
Or,  still  rejecting,  and  preferring  still 
Their  own  unto  his  pleasure,  may  be  cast 
To  outer  darkness  and  the  second  death. 
These  storms  and  perturbations  are  his  throes, 
And  here  we  wait  until  He  reassume 
His  attributes  and  kingdom. 

61 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

The  Angel  of  the  Lamp. 

Will  Hq  come  ! 

And  will  the  ancient  peace  be  ours  again  ? 
Speak,  brother,  will  it  be  ? 

Uriel. 

Hope  still  is  ours. 
Tremble  no  more,  sweet  Flame !    Good  hope  is 

ours. 

The  Angel  of  the  Lamp. 

My  secret  lies  upon  my  heart  too  long  ! 
Since  first  the  trumpet  told  of  Time  begun, 
And  in  the  seven  bowls  the  seven  flames, 
So  white  before  and  still,  a  patient  praise, 
Leaped  up  in  restless  colours,  fear  hath  stood 
A  whispering  eighth  among  the  sisters  seven, 
A  thin  small  voice  singing  above  our  songs, 
A  hush  beneath  our  hush.     Each  side  the  throne 
The  mystic  olive  trees  began  to  blow, 
And  on  the  candlesticks  that  burn  beneath 
Dropped  dying  bloom  and  fruitage  mortal  ripe. 
When  evening  spread  upon  the  holy  hill 
Its  excellence  of  peace,  small  restless  wings, 
To  Heaven  unnative,  fluttered  round  our  lamps, 
Forever  circling  nearer  till  they  threw 
Into  the  flame  their  lives  of  longing  dust, 
And  though  we  plucked  the  char  out  hastily 

62 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

A  climbing  rust  had  dulled  our  torch  of  praise. 
Nay,  where  the  very  breast  of  God  should  be, 
Forever  panoplied  with  viewless  light, 
Gnawed  darkness  like  a  worm,  and  when  this 

wind 

That  never  came  till  now,  blew  wide  and  thin 
The  splendor  of  the  Throne-stead  —  hush,  bend 

close !  — 
His  eyes  were  old  with  pain.     Then  all  at  once  — 

0  brothers,  is  it  hours  or  aeons  since  I  — 
Intolerable  lambence  lit  the  air  ; 

The  sea  of  glass  whereon  the  nations  stand 
At  morn  to  carol,  curdled  red  as  blood, 
And  rolled  a  moaning  billow  to  the  shore  ; 
The  Eagle  screamed ;  upon  the  tabled  gem 
Where  was  the  footstool  of  God's  feet,  lay  prone 
The  Lion's  whining  muzzle ;  and  the  Calf 
Bleated  beneath  his  six-times-folded  wing. 
My  sister  lamps  were  quenched,  but  ere  I  fled 

1  crept  up  past  the  Lion's  awful  paws, 

Up  past  the  shrouding  light,  and  saw  His  place 
Was  empty.  ...  Is  it  hours  or  aeons  since  ? 
I  found  the  shadowed  fields  about  me,  grey 
Each  hearted  amaranth  and  asphodel, 
The  living  forests  with  their  veins  of  light 
Looped  thickly,  and  the  burning  flowers  between, 
The  living  waters,  and  the  lily  souls 

63 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Along  the  waters  —  all  a  stricken  grey  ! 
Where'er  I  fled  or  turned  it  still  pursued  — 
That  Nothingness  that  sat  upon  the  Throne  ; 
And  now  it  waits  to  seize  me — yonder,  here ! 

Uriel. 

Hush,  be  of  better  comfort.     Through  the  plain 
Auroral  pallors  wake  the  asphodels ; 
The  wind  at  last  is  still ;  and  eastward  far 
Beyond  the  friths  and  islands  of  that  sea 
Which  spreads  before  His  dwelling  in  the  Mount, 
Behold,  beginning  glories  star  the  dusk, 
As  if  the  clouds  rolled  burning  from  the  throne, 
To  show  us  signs  and  wonders  risen  there. 
And  hark !  the  happy  presage  of  keen  wings 
Ingathering  from  the  corners  of  the  winds ; 
Large  light,  and  silvery  calls  and  far  replies, 
And  deeps  of  song  that  call  unto  the  deeps. 

Eaphael. 

His  agony  is  done  :  a  little  while 
He  tarries,  but  He  surely  comes  again 
Even  though  but  for  a  little. 

The  Spirit  of  the  Lamp. 

Let  us  join 
These  hasting  companies  whose  steady  flight 

64 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Goes  tempered  to  all  manner  instruments 
Borne  in  their  midst  by  hidden  taborists, 
Lute-players,   and    them    that    pluck  the  dul- 
cimer— 

All  sweet  musicians  !    Surely  these  go  in 
Unto  some  holy  matter. 

Raphael, 

Surely.     Come ! 


65 


ACT    III. 


Time  :   Scene  I.  before  dawn,  Scene  II.  after  sunset, 
of  the  Day  of  Judgment 


ACT  III.     SCENE  I. 

A  peak  above  the  Valley  of  the  Judgment.     Be- 
tween midnight  and  daum. 


Raphael. 

Alas,  on  this  lone  height  my  pinions  fail, 
And  half  my  dreaming  world  unvisited ! 
As  a  sick  woman,  who,  when  morning  glooms 
Must  leave  for  aye  the  house  where  she  was 

wed, 

Yearns  to  behold  the  thrice-familiar  rooms, 
And    rises    trembling,    and    with    watch-lamp 

goes 

From  chamber  unto  chamber,  stopping  now 
To  muse  upon  her  dead  child's  pictured  brow, 
And  now  to  dream  of  little  merriments 
Enacted,  and  of  trivial  dear  events, 
Until  her  weakness  grows 
Upon  her,  and  she  sinks  and  cannot  rise, — 
So,  since  upon  the  sad  and  prescient  skies 
The  darkness  of  this  ultimate  night  was  shed, 
My  feet  from  haunted  place  to  haunted  place 
Of  my  familiar  earth  have  kept  their  pace  : 
Alas,  that  ere  the  half  be  mused  upon, 
And  while  the  coming  up  of  dreadful  day 

69 


THE    MASQUE    OP    JUDGMENT 

Is  still  an  hour  away 

My  wing  is  broken,  and  my  strength  is  gone  ! 

Star  after  star  goes  out  above  the  peak, 
And  only  from  the  morning  star  is  shed 
Keen  influence.     Great  star  !    He  is  not  weak, 
His  pinions  fail  not ;  for  he  never  quaffed 
This  frail  and  fiery  air  that  mortals  drink  : 
He  has  not  heard  when  little  children  laughed  ; 
He  has  not  watched  old  pensioners  break  their 

bread ; 

To  woman's  lips  he  never  held  the  draught 
Of  anguish,  that  a  man-child  might  be  born  ; 
The  May  woods  never  saw  him  hiding  there 
His  wings  and  flaming  hair 
To  watch  the  young  men  pluck  the  budded 

thorn ; 

Nor  has  his  mouth  put  off  its  seraph  scorn 
To  hang  with  startled  cry 
Of  grievous  inquiry 
Above  the  stoic  forehead  of  the  dead. 

O  heart  of  man,  how  I  have  loved  thee  ! 
Hidden  in  sunlight  what  sweet  hours  were  mine 
Of  lover-like  espial  upon  thine  j 
Thrilled  with  thy  shadowy  fears,  half-guessing 
The  hope  that  lit  thy  veins  like  wine, 

70 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Musing  why  this  was  bane  and  that  thy  blessing, 
My  angel- ichor  moved  by  all  that  moved  thee  ; 
Though  oft  the  meanings  of  thy  joy  and  woe 
Were  hid,  were  hard  to  know  ; 
For  deep  beneath  the  clear  crystalline  waters 
That  feed  the  hearts  of  Heaven's  sons  and  daugh- 
ters, 

The  roots  of  thy  life  go. 
O  Dreamer  !    O  Desirer  !    Goer  down 
Unto  untravelled  seas  in  untried  ships  ! 
O  crusher  of  the  unimagined  grape 
On  unconceivM  lips ! 
O  player  upon  a  lordly  instrument 
No  man  or  god  hath  had  in  mind  to  invent ; 
O  cunning  how  to  shape 
Effulgent  Heaven  and  scoop  out  bitter  Hell 
From  the  little  shine  and  saltness  of  a  tear  ; 
Sieger  and  harrier, 

Beyond  the  moon,  of  thine  own  builded  town, 
Each  morning  won,  each  eve  impregnable, 
Each  noon  evanished  sheer  ! 

Thou  fiery  essence  in  a  vase  of  fire  ! 

What  quarry  gathered  and  packed  down  the  clay 

To  make  this  delicate  vessel  of  desire  f 

Who  digged  it  I    In  what  mortar  did  he  bray  f 

Whose  wistful  hand  did  lead 

71 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

All  round  the  lyric  brede  ? 

Who  tinted  it,  and  burned  the  dross  away  T 

"He,  He,"  (doth  some  one  say?) 

"Whose  mallet-arm  is  lift  and  knitted  hard 

To  break  it  into  shard  ! " 

Were  that  the  Maker's  way  t 

Who  brings  to  being  aught, 

Love  is  his  skill  untaught, 

Love  is  his  ore,  his  furnace,  and  his  tool ; 

Who  makes,  destroyeth  not, 

But  much  is  dashed  in  pieces  by  the  fool. 

0  struggler  in  the  mesh 
Of  spirit  and  of  flesh 

Some  subtle  hand  hath  tied  to  make  thee  Man, 
That  now  is  unto  thee  a  wide  domain 
To  laugh  and  love  and  dare  in  for  a  span, 
And  straightway  is  a  prison-house  of  pain, 
A  den  of  loathing,  and  a  violent  place, 
A  hold  for  unclean  wing  and  cruel  face 
That  mock  the  seared  heart  and  darkened  brain,  - 
My  bosom  yearns  above  thee  at  the  end, 
Thinking  of  all  thy  gladness,  all  thy  woe  ; 
Whoever  is  thy  foe, 

1  am  thy  friend,  thy  friend  I 

As  thou  hast  striven,  I  strove  to  comprehend 
The  piteous  sundering  set  betwixt  the  zenith 

72 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

And  nadir  of  thy  fates, 

Whose  life  doth  serious  message  send 

To  moon  and  stars,  anon  itself  demeaneth 

Below  the  brute  estates. 

Wild  heart,  that  through  the  steepening  arcs  art 

whirled 

To  a  bright  master- world, 
And  in  a  trice  must  blindly  backward  hark 
To  the  subterrene  dark, 
Deem  not  that  mighty  gamut-frame  was  set 
For  wanton  finger-fret  I 
No  empty-hearted  gymnast  of  the  strings 
Gave  the  wild  treble  wings, 
Or  flung  the  shuddering  bass  from  hell's  last 

parapet. 

Though  now  the  Master  sad 
With  vehemence  shall  break  thee, 
Not  lightly  did  He  make  thee, 
That  morning  when  his  heart  was  music-mad : 
Lovely  importings  then  his  looks  and  gestures 

had. 

Whatever  cometh  with  to-morrow's  light, 

Oh,  deem  not  that  in  idlesse  or  in  spite 

The  strong  knot  of  thy  fate 

Was  woven  so  implicate, 

Or  that  a  jester  put  thee  in  that  plight. 

73 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Darkly,  but  oh,  for  good,  for  good, 

The  spirit  infinite 

"Was  throned  upon  the  perishable  blood  ; 

To  moan  and  to  be  abject  at  the  neap, 

To  ride  portentous  on  the  shrieking  scud 

Of  the  aroused  flood, 

And  halcyon  hours  to  preen  and  prate  in  the  boon 

Tropical  afternoon. 

Not  in  vain,  not  in  vain, 

The  spirit  hath  its  sanguine  stain, 

And  from  its  senses  five  doth  peer 

As  a  fawn  from  the  green  windows  of  a  wood  ; 

Slave  of  the  panic  woodland  fear, 

Boon-fellow  in  the  game  of  blood  and  lust 

That  fills  with  tragic  mirth  the  woodland  year, 

Searched  with  starry  agonies 

Through  the  breast  and  through  the  reins, 

Maddened  and  led  by  lone  moon- wandering  cries. 

Dust  unto  dust  complains, 

Dust  laugheth  out  to  dust, 

Sod  unto  sod  moves  fellowship, 

And  the  soul  utters,  as  she  must, 

Her  meanings  with  a  loose  and  carnal  lip  ; 

But  deep  in  her  ambiguous  eyes 

Forever  shine  and  slip 

Quenchless  expectancies, 

74 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 
And  in  a  far-off  day  she  seems  to  put  her  trust. 

O  Morning  Star  !  that  dost  arise 
Haughtily  now  from  off  thy  flaming  throne. 
And  standest  in  thy  wings'  outspreaded  zone, 
With  hand  uplift  and  intense  vision  glad, 
More  kindling  while  thy  brother  planets  fade, — 
Wilt  thou,  the  seldom-speaker,  speak  and  say 
If  this,  if  this  be  then  the  far-off  day 
When  God  shall  give  the  substance  for  the  shade  ? 
When  Man  shall  wake,  and  be  no  more  adrad 
To  lose  the  precious  dream  he  dreamed  he  had, 
And  the  long  groping  of  his  heart  be  stayed  ? 

He  answers  not ;  the  globed  light  he  wears 
Largens  and  largens  like  a  wondrous  flower, 
And  in  the  midst  his  wavering  radiance  fades. 
Behold,  upon  the  waters,  them  that  be 
Above  the  heavens,  how  the  lily  light 
Blooms  mystical  and  vast !  till  all  the  stars 
And  all  the  gathered  clouds  that  wait  the  day 
Are  blotted  by  its  rondure.     Dimly  grows 
From  height  to  depth  of  that  magnificence 
A  splendor  sad  that  taketh  feature  on.  ... 
Lo  !  where  God's  body  hangs  upon  the  cross, 
Drooping  from  out  yon  skiey  Golgotha 
Above  the  wills  and  passions  of  the  world  ! 

75 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

O  doomed,  rejected  world,  awake !  awake  ! 

See  where  He  droopeth  white  and  pitiful ! 

Behold,  his  drooping  brow  is  pitiful ! 

Cry  unto  Him  for  pity.     Climb,  oh,  haste, 

Climb  swiftly  up  yon  skiey  Golgotha 

To  where  his  feet  are  wounded  !    Even  now 

He  must  have  pity  on  his  childish  ones ; 

He  knoweth,  He  remembereth  they  are  dust ! 

Earth  slumbers  ;  and  the  freshening  winds  begin 

To  blow  from  out  the  unuprisen  east ; 

Yet  still  abides  that  awful  Eidolon 

Large  on  the  face  of  Heaven,  and  its  light 

Is  as  the  patience  of  a  thousand  moons 

Upon  the  peaks  and  gorges  of  the  vale. 

Now  on  that  giant  forehead  slowly  dawns 

Again  the  star,  the  bright,  the  morning  star  ; 

Amid  the  changeful  lampings  of  his  orb 

The  Angel  stands,  with  keen  out-spreaded  wings, 

And  lifted  hand  and  intense  vision  glad, 

As  when  he  led  his  brother  orbs  in  song. 

But  yet  no  word  nor  any  breath  of  song 

Begins  upon  the  region  silences  : 

All's  hushed  as  ere  the  first-created  throat 

Was  vocal. 

Now  remoter  wonders  wake, 
Impatient  glories  gather  and  transpeer 

76 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

That  sky-suspended  Image.     Three  by  three 

The  beryl  gates,  the  gates  of  chrysoprase, 

And  those  that  are  a  very  perfect  pearl 

Open,  and  all  the  citadel  of  God 

Even  to  the  bright  acropolis  thereof, 

The  temple  of  the  ark  of  the  covenant, 

Lies  open,  steeped    in  wroth    light    from  the 

Throne ; 
And  all  the  heavenly  folk  are  busy  there. 


77 


ACT  III.      SCENE    II. 
A  peak  above  the  Valley  of  the  Judgment.    Twilight. 

MicJiael. 
God's  vengeance    is    full  wrought,   unless    this 

form 

That  labors  from  the  dark  mists  of  the  Vale 
Be  one  whose  strength  has  overlived  our  wrath, 
And  the  last  hunger  of  whose  heart  shall  be 
To  creep  from  out  that  mass  of  death,  and  wait 
High  on  these  ruined  hills  for  death  to  come 
At  nightfall,  when  the  last  strong  soul  must 

die. 

Nay,  'tis  no  mortal  creature,  though  he  wears 
A  fallen  unhappy  splendor,  and  his  wings, 
All  eyed  and  irised  like  the  gladdest  ones 
That  glimmer  in  the  pageantry  of  Heaven, 
Are  folded  sadly  o'er  his  downcast  eyes 
As  now  he  sits  and  dreams.     'Tis  Eaphael. 

(Michael  descends. ) 

Why  sitteth  Eaphael  disconsolate 
After  the  manifest  glories  of  this  day  1 

Raphael. 

The  rest  may  keep  the  glory. 
78 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Michael. 

Wilt  thou  share 

The  love-feast  of  the  saved  in  Heaven  to-night 
With  hidden  traitorous  thoughts  clouding  thy 
heart? 

Raphael. 

Never  again  !    Never  again  for  me  ! 

Never  again  the  lily  souls  that  live 

Along  the  margent  of  the  streams,  shall  grow 

More  candid  at  my  coming.     Never  more 

God's  birds  above  the  bearers  of  the  Ark 

Shall  make  a  wood  of  implicated  wings, 

Swept  by  the  wind  of  slow  ecstatic  song. 

Thy  youths  shall  hold  their  summer  cenacles ; 

I  am  not  of  their  fellowship,  it  seems. 

God's  ancient  peace  shall  feed  them,  as  it  feeds 

These  yet  uplifted  hills.     I  would  I  knew 

Where  bubbled  that  insistent  spring.     To  drink 

Deep,  and  forget  what  I  have  seen  to-day  ! 

Michael. 

What  thou  hast  seen?     The  splendor    of  his 

power 

Sent  forth  against  the  wicked  j  his  right  arm 
Cleaving  unbearable  glories,  lifted  high 
To  hurl  his  chivalry  down  slopes  of  flame 

79 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

With  wheels  and  tramplings ;  the  wide  thresh- 
ing-floor 

Become  a  furnace ;  drop  by  anguished  drop 
The  oozing  of  the  wine-press  of  his  wrath  ; 
The  gross  pulp  cumbering  the  floor  of  the  world, 
The  little  priceless  liquor  chaliced  up, 
Borne  back  'mid  plaining  silver  and  sweet  throats 
For  the  Spirit's  earliest  house-gift  to  the  Bride  ! 
Thou  would' st  forget  this  gladly,  Eaphael? 

Raphael. 
Yes,  yes  j  right  gladly. 

Michael. 

Yonder  where  the  fight 
Flung  its  main  sea  of  blood  and  broken  souls 
Into  the  nether  dark,  I  saw  a  youth 
Cling  for  a  moment  to  a  jutting  rock 
And  gaze  back  at  the  angel  shapes  that  rode 
The  neck  of  the  avalanche  ;  between  the  wings 
Of  the  pale  horse  and  the  red  his  vision  pierced, 
Between  the  ranks  of  spectral  charioteers, 
Supernal  arms  and  banners  prone  for  speed, 
Up  to  the  central  menace  of  the  Hand 
That  launched  that  bulk  of  ruin  ;  and  I  saw 
A  light  of  mighty  pleasure  fill  his  eyes 
At  all  that  harness  and  despatch  of  war 

80 


THE   MASQUE   OF   JUDGMENT 

Storming  aslope.     He  laughed  defiance  back 

Ere  down  cascades  of  blood  and  fire  was  flung 

His  body  indistinguishably  damned. 

How  should  this  puny  valor  rise  in  glee 

To  greet  the  power  that  crushed  it,  and  thy  heart, 

Angelically  dowered,  stand  listless  by  ? 

RapMel. 

Perhaps  for  thinking  on  another  sight. 
After  thy  chivalry  passed  down  and  left 
The  valley-trough  cumbered  and  heaped  with 

death, 

A  broken  girl  o'er-lived  to  find  the  breast 
Her  arms  had  clung  to  in  the  awful  fall 
Strange,  alien,  not  her  lover's  boyish  shape 
She  deemed  she  held,  but  gross  with  years  and 

sins. 

Her  changed  eyes  heavily  a  moment  roamed, 
Then  settled  back  on  his,  the  darkened  mate 
Whom  chance  had  flung  her  at  the  hour  extreme 
In  scornful  bridals.     From  his  brow  she  drew 
The  war-worn  locks,  and  laid  her  kisses  there 
Unutterable  with  life's  Extreme  tenderness. 

Hark  !  where  the  last  of  those  redeemed  go  by, 
Companioned  of  the  hasting  paranymphs 
Who  hear  afar  the  Spirit  and  the  Bride 

81 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Say  "Come,"  and  see  the  nuptial  torch  alight 
Ere  they  have  put  their  saffron  vesture  on, — 
Too  eager  for  their  goal  to  join  the  song 
Those  throats  redeemed  raise,  save  that  their 

hearts 

Throb  rhythmic  with  it,  systole  dim 
And  bright  diastole,  with  wax  and  wane 
Of  spirit-splendor  pulsing  to  the  tune. 

Redeemed  Spirits  (sing,  as  they  fly  past  below). 

In  the  wilds  of  life  astray, 
Held  far  from  our  delight, 
Following  the  cloud  by  day 
And  the  fire  by  night, 
Came  we  a  desert  way. 
O  Lord,  with  apples  feed  us, 
With  flagons  stay ! 
By  Thy  still  waters  lead  us  ! 

As  bird  torn  from  the  breast 
Of  mother-cherishings, 
Far  from  the  swaying  nest 
Dies  for  the  mother  wings, 
So  did  the  birth-hour  wrest 
From  Thy  sweet  will  and  word 
Our  souls  distressed. 
Open  Thy  breast,  thou  Bird  ! 

82 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Raphael. 

Another  neareth,  chill  upon  the  wind  ; 
"Wan  fire-flakes  stain  the  clustering  spires  of  cliff, 
From  ledge  to  shoulder  hapless  echo  clings 
And  falters  up. 

Michael. 

The  pale  one's  homing-song  ! 
To-day  he  makes  good  harvest,  and  his  voice 
Has  autumn  meanings  ;  jealously  and  late 
His  steed  foregoes  the  trampled  threshing-stead. 

Raphael. 

Terrible  angel !    Never  until  now 
Have  I  beheld  his  features  through  the  veil 
Of  pallor  that  enwrapped  them ;  now  at  last 
Their  terror  is  distinct,  for  triumph  now 
And  large  appeasement  lights  them  visibly, 
As  o'er  his  horse's  neck  he  strains  for  speed. 

Michael. 
One  flieth  with  him,  rosy-lit  within. 

Raphael. 

Not  as  the  battailous  breathing  of  thy  mates 
Enrubies  them  :  more  vesperine  and  sad. 
'  Twill  be  the  lordly  light  of  Uriel,  dimmed. 
Hail,  Uriel !    Quench  thy  speed. 

83 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

The  Angel  of  the  Pale  Horse  (flying). 

Why  tarry  now  ? 
God's  acts  are  throughly  complished :    Heaven 

stays 
Till  all  her  sons  be  gathered. 

(Flies  past.} 

Uriel  (alighting). 

Here  I  wait 
To  see  the  swift  reprisals  Man  shall  take. 

Michael. 

Blaspheme  not,  lest  I  hurl  thee  down  to  swell 
The  carrion  sin  that  Eaphael  mourns  above  ! 

Raphael. 

Uriel's  place  is  there,  by  those  pale  heads, 
Those  sightless  eyes  with  awful  question  changed, 
Those  desperate  broken  hands  cheated  in  death 
With  poor  embraces  chance  and  alien. 
Not  Uriel's  only, —  mine,  and  thine,  and  theirs 
Thy  warrior  mates,  and  chiefly  His  whose  breast 
Bathed  in  some  dawn's  bright  urge  and  wistful- 
ness 

Put  out  this  lovely  fruitage,  this  sweet  vine 
Of  man  the  leaf  and  maid  the  honeyed  flower 
In  mystic  alternation,  and  when  noon 
Spread  clamor  in  the  pulses  of  the  vine, 

84 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Was  pined  and  plucked  it  up  !    Not  so  shall  one 
Deal  with  another's,  much  less  with  his  own. 

Michael. 

For  sins  not  to  be  borne  he  cut  them  off. 
Murders,  adulteries,  and  acts  unclean, 
Idolatries,  and  broken  covenants, 
Violent  hearts  and  unconsidering  tongues. 

Uriel. 

The  violence  and  the  unclean  acts  were  his  ; 
Unto  Himself  himself  brake  covenant ; 
Before  the  monstrous  fancies  of  his  heart 
His  heart  made  heathen  mummery  and  song. 
Wherefore  to-day  himself  He  punishes. 

Michael. 

Thy  mouth  uttereth  darkness.     Is  all  dream  ? 
Human  and  heavenly  deed  unmeaning  both  f 

Raphael  (to  Uriel). 

Brother,  thou  art  all  wisdom,  as  I  know 
And  still  have  proved  rejoicingly,  but  now 
Thy  word  indeed  is  difficult  and  dark. 
Take  not  away  Man's  ancient  dignity, 
The  privilege  and  power  to  elect  his  ways, 
His  kingly  self-possession.     Level  not 

85 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

The  head  that  lies  too  low  to-day.     Snatch  not 
From  brows  abased  the  crown  of  personal  will 
Which  made  them  noble,    though  it   brought 

them  down, 

Being  worn  too  carelessly,  too  like  a  wreath 
Of  ivy  or  poppies  meant  for  holiday. 
Man's  agonies  and  ecstasies  obscure 
"Were  more  than  shadow- show  !    Not  all  in  vain 
His  groping  toward  some  quaint  imagined  good, 
His  blood  shed  for  a  scruple,  his  low  days 
Winged  and  illumined  with  long-suffering  love  ! 

Uriel. 

Nay,  not  in  vain  were  these,  though  otherwise 
Bound  with  the  sum  of  things  than  unto  Man 
Seemed  likely,  wearing  that  glad  wreath  he  wore, 
And  going  after  good  the  headstrong  way. 

Raphael. 
We  wait  to  hear  this  riddling  talk  made  plain. 

Uriel. 

Truth  is  not  soon  made  plain,  nor  in  a  breath 
Fluently  solved  while  the  chance  listener  waits, 
Nor  by  the  elemental  wrestling  mind 
Wrung  from  the  rock  with  sobs.     Myself  have 
held, 

86 


Where  in  the  sun's  core  light  and  thought  are 

one, 
JEons  of  question,  and  am  darkling  still. 

Raphael. 
Speak,  brother,  though  thy  words  be  hard  and 

scant. 
The  candle  flame  goes  far  a  moonless  night. 

Uriel. 

The  worlds  and  all  their  tenantry  are  Him, 
Even  to  the  utmost  archipelagoes 
Gazed  at  by  maritime  angels  ere  they  veer 
Homeward,  awestruck  by  omens  and  sea-signs 
Known  to  no  pilot  of  them,  and  far-off 
Watch  the  scared  islanders  beside  the  straits,— 
All  these,  and  whatso  lies  beyond  our  hail, 
Are  effluence  of  the  life  that  moves  in  Him, 
Thought    of    his  brain,    wish    of   his  working 

blood : 

Yet  every  separate  creature  of  his  thought 
Hath  separate  claims  and  separate  potencies. 
Oh,  not  a  sparrow  falleth  to  the  ground 
But  He  regardeth  it !    Since  ere  it  fell 
A  little  gladness  died  away  in  Him. 
And  not  a  creature  sinneth  but  He  weeps 
His  own  sin  with  his  creature's —  fourfold  pain, 

87 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Since  god  and  creature,  false  each  to  itself, 
Was  false  each  to  the  other.     Not  a  heart 
O'ercometh  evil  and  mounts  up  to  good, 
But  He  o'ercometh  and  is  lifted  too. 
Each  life  of  clay  that  flowered  in  fragrant  deed, 
Each  grass-blade  that  grew  willingly,  each  bird 
That  through  the  churlish  weather  hoarded  song, 
Not  only  worked  its  own  salvation  out 
But  helped  Him  in  his  old  struggle  with  him- 
self— 

Or  might  have  helped  —  or  might  have  helped, 
it  seems.  .  .  . 

Raphael. 
Yet  did  not,  thy  disconsolate  ending  says. 

Uriel. 

Who  shall  dispute  finalities  with  Him  f 
Not  Uriel.     But  as  far  as  Uriel  sees, 
Salvation  lies  annulled  in  yonder  Vale 
And  prone  are  God's  true  helpers. 

Michael. 

Clay  of  clay ! 

Wassailers,  fleshlings,  quarrel-mongers,  thieves 
Of  pleasure,  plighters  of  unholy  troth, 
Mimes,  gypsies,  idol-breakers,  idol-smiths, 
Dervishing  fantasists  —  most  likely  help  ! 

88 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Uriel. 

Unlikely  :  yet  the  marrow  of  his  bones ; 

Heat  of  the  breath  of  his  mouth  ;  corpuscles  red 

Energic  in  his  veins,  loud  gainsayers 

Of  death's  insinuating  whisper,  "Peace  ! "  .  .  . 

Before  the  Heavens  were  spread,  or  He  himself 

Eose  from  his  changeless  and  unpictured  dream, 

These  stirred  in  Him,  demanding  to  be  dowered 

With  individual  shape  and  destiny, — 

Each  one  a  soul,  yet  each  incorporate 

With  his  great  soul,  which  to  far  happy  ends 

Should  henceforth  in  a  million  shapes  of  will 

Immensely  groan  and  travail,  not  with  tears 

Alone,  but  laughter,  with  singing  as  with  sobs. 

Oh,  many  a  golden  station  on  that  march 

Lie  backward  of  us  !  when  the  armed  worlds 

Broke  leaguer  round  some  conquered  capital, 

And  in  the  pleasure-places  of  its  kings 

Sat   down    to    feast,    the   unhelmed    gleemen 

chanting 

Victory  past  and  victory  to  come. 
Let  me  not  darken  thought  with  imagery  ! 
Still  the  naked  word  escapes  me,  being  too  vast, 
Too  simple,  for  our  little  pictured  speech. 
This  chiefly  I  would  say  :  the  restless  joy 
Which  called  God  from  his  sleep  and  bade  his 

hand 

89 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Depict  much  life  and  language  on  the  dark, 

Had  other  aims  and  meanings  than  are  writ 

In  yonder  Valley  for  an  epilogue. 

Man's  violence  was  earnest  of  his  strength, 

His  sin  a  heady  overflow,  dynamic 

Unto  all  lovely  uses,  to  be  curbed 

And  sweetened,  never  broken  with  the  rod ! 

Raphael. 
Why  did  He  quench  their   passion!    I  have 

walked 
The   rings    of   planets   where  strange- coloured 

moons 

Hung  thick  as  dew,  in  ocean  orchards  feared 
The  glaucous  tremble  of  the  living  boughs 
Whose  fruit  hath  eyes  and  purpose ;  but  no- 
where 

Found  any  law  but  this  :  Passion  is  power, 
And,  kindly  tempered,  saves.    All  things  declare 
Struggle  hath  deeper  peace  than  sleep  can  bring  : 
The  restlessness  that  put  creation  forth 
Impure  and  violent,  held  holier  calm 
Than  that  Nirvana  whence  it  wakened  Him. 

Uriel. 

This  day  declares  He  deemeth  otherwise. 
The  Shining  Wrestler,  tired  of  strife,  hath  slain 

90 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

The  dark  antagonist  whose  enmity 
Gave  Him  rejoicing  sinews  ;  but  of  Him 
His  foe  was  flesh  of  flesh  and  bone  of  bone  j 
With  suicidal  hand  He  smote  him  down  : 
Soon  we  shall  feel  His  lethal  pangs  begin. 

Raphael. 

Fiercer  than  those  that  clove  thy  burning  realms 
And    sent  grey  winds  to  waste  the  plains  of 

Heaven 

When  on  the  Cross  He  sought  to  purchase  peace 
And  lure  his  wayward  world  back  to  His  hand  ! 

Michael. 
His  lightning  dry  thy  tongue  !    Why  should  our 

minds 

Peer  and  conjecture  of  the  danger  past  1 
Thou  knowest  what  glory  followed. 

Raphael. 

A  \5jj    A   JVllUW* 

The  clouds  at  last  rolled  burning  from  the  Throne 
And  let  us  see  the  risen  wonders  there. 
Again  I  hear  the  gathering  psalmody 
Chant  out  the  clement  tale  —  eternal  God 
Made  clay,  by  hands  of  clay  unto  the  Cross 
Hung  for  a  sign,  that  who  beholding  Him 
Should  find  Him  very  God,  might  dwell  with  us 

91 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

In  endless  light  and  life.     Again  I  hear 
The  deep  consenting  chorus  monnt  and  merge 
The  wayward  crests  of  treble  into  one  ; 
But  still  between  the  calling  deeps  of  song 
Vagne  and  unacquiescent  hung  my  heart, 
Conning  the  burden  wistfully  anew 
In  hopes  to  find  the  joy  my  comrades  found 
Hid  in  the  dubious  notes.    Vague  hung  my  heart, 
Wistful  as  morning  boughs  that  watch  the  moon, 
Not  strong  as  now  when  I  have  seen  all  clear 
And  o'er  the  ashes  of  the  world  declare  — 
Listen  !    Are  there  not  voices  in  the  Vale  ! 

Michael. 
They  talk  together.     Some  die  not  till  dark. 

Raphael. 
Aye,  until  dark  !     'Twill  be  a  starless  night. 


92 


ACT     IV. 


Time  :  evening  of  the  Day  of  Judgment 


ACT    IV. 

A  rock  in  the  Valley  of  the  Judgment ;  about  the 
rock,  and  filling  the  whole  trough  of  the  valley,  lie 
the  bodies  of  the  lost.  Twilight. 

Raphael. 

My  lot  is  cast  with  these  :  I  watch  to-night 
Here  islanded  in  death.     Say  me  not  nay  : 
Till  from  the  last  lip  anguish  is  unwreathed, 
From  the  last  brow  the  frown  of  horror  fades, 
Here  I  must  sit,  witness  and  comforter 
If  any  more  conspicuous  strengths  survive 
To  mutter  or  make  signal  in  the  dusk. 

Michael. 
Nay,  brother,  stay  not.     Though  thy  words  are 

calm, 

Thy  desperate  eyes  betray  thee  ;  thou  resolvest 
Some  sudden  irremediable  thing. 
The  past  is  done,  and,  whether  well  or  ill, 
Necessitously.     Put  on  that  robe  of  song 
Woven  of  youngest  light  and  over-runed 
With  flickerings  of  the  golden  elder  speech, 
Wherein  thou  led'st  the  lily  souls  along 
Choregic  o'er  the  unclouded  psalmody 
And  wert  so  starry  long  agone  !    Arise  ! 

95 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

My  soul  is  heavy  at  thee.     Thou  art  wan ; 
Thine  eyes  are  dull  yet  wild,  even  as  these 
"Who  lie  involved  and  heaped  along  the  Vale 
Seeming  in  death  to  threaten  and  to  rave. 
Arise  and  come  away  !    Why  tarry  here 
To  mourn  above  these  outcast,  since  the  fan 
Hath  winnowed  them  and  left  no  righteous  one  ? 
Bather  arise,  make  glad  thy  countenance, 
And  through  the  courts  of  day  let  herald  throats 
Softly  declare  thy  coming,  virgin  hands, 
From    that    oraculous    tree    whose    leaves    are 

tongues, 

Laurel  thee  best  of  Heaven's  lutanists 
And  seat  thee  at  the  minstrel-hand  of  God. 

Raphael. 

You  urge  me  well.     I  think  my  songs  to-night 
Would  cheer  their  festivals  :  I  have  a  theme 
Of  very  present  gladness,  deeply  conned. 
But  if  amid  the  gratulating  chant, 
If  through  the  dances  orbed  and  interorbed 
Furnished  with  solemn  symbol  and  device, 
Perchance  there  stole  a  quite  unfurnished  shape 
Nakedly  risen  from  this  company  1 
Holding  up  horrible  accusing  hands 
Against  the  nuptial  light?    That  were  scarce 
well. 

96 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

I  fear  my  lute  would  glance  and  jangle  off 
To  themes  as  good  unsung.     Hark  ! 

Michael, 

Twas  a  voice, 

Not  distant. 

Raphael. 

Nay,  'tis  yonder, — he,  who  lies 
Half -lifted  from  the  jetsam  of  this  sea 
Across  that  ragged  reef.     Another,  hush  ! 
A  woman's  voice,  was't  not?    And  see,  below  — 
That  aged  throat  would  fain  articulate.  .  .  . 
They  taste  sweet  speech  ere  the  long  silence 

comes. 

A  Youth's  Voice. 

Do  any  live  but  me  !    Do  any  wake  to  hear 
A  word  spoke  in  the  dark  before  I  die  f 

An  Old  Man. 
An  old  and  wakeful  spirit  rests  thee  near. 

A  Young  Woman. 
Long  had  I  lain  asleep,  but  wakened  at  thy  cry. 

Youth. 

Not  all  discourteous  is  the  Conqueror's  heart, 
Since  now  of  that  good  strength  I  wore  at  noon 
Ebbs  back  a  little  part. 

97 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Old  Man. 

Enough  to  syllable  thy  soul's  young  scorn, 
Though  all  unripe,  unwise  ; 
And  haply  rouse  some  one  of  these  that  lie 
Fixing  the  dark  with  undivining  eyes 
Of  human  wit  and  seemliness  forlorn, 
To  speak  their  separate  word  or  unto  thine  reply. 

Youth. 

A  song  of  scorn  I  minded  to  have  sung, 
But  all  the  words  are  faded  from  my  tongue. 
Mysteriously  withdrawn, 
Out  of  this  desolation  I  am  gone 
Aloft  into  the  light  of  other  days. 
My  heart  runs  naked  in  the  wind,  more  fleet 
Than  are  my  flying  feet, 

Above  the  misty  foss  and  up  the  mountain  lawn 
To  seek  the  place  of  Morning  where  she  stays. 
The  silver  summits  held  across  the  dawn 
By  some  gigantic  arm,  like  wrought  candelabras, 
Kindle  their  wicks  of  praise 
To  light  the  temple  builded  not  with  hands 
Above  the  prostrate  lands, 
And  the  religious  winds,  song-stoled, 
Pacing  the  mighty  nave 
Fill  azure  dome  and  star-held  architrave 
With  hymns  unto  the  gods  that  grow  not  old, — 

98 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Lords  of  tlie  joy  of  life  made  known 

Not  unto  gods  alone, 

But  perfectly  to  man  and  beast  and  stone, 

And  by  the  atomies  with  rapture  shared, 

But  ne'er  by  poet's  golden  mouth 

Nor  by  the  west  wind  singing  to  the  south 

Fitly  declared. 

Oh,  for  a  voice 

Here  in  the  doors  of  death 

To  speak  the  praise  of  life,  existence  mere, 

The  simple  come  and  go  of  natural  breath, 

And  habitation  of  the  body's  house  with  its  five 

windows  clear  ! 

O  souls  defeated,  broken,  and  undone, 
Eejoice  with  me,  rejoice 
That  we  have  walked  beneath  the  moon  and 

sun 

Not  churlishly,  nor  slanderous  of  the  bliss  ; 
But  rather  leaving  this 
To  the  many  prophets  strict  and  sedulous 
Of  that  sad-spoken  god 

Who  now  hath  conquered  and  is  surely  king, 
Have  given  our  lips  for  life  to  closely  kiss, 
Have  heard  the  sweet  persuasion  of  the  sod 
And  been  heart- credulous 
To  trust  the  signs  and  whispers  of  the  spring. 

99 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Second  Youth. 

Various  the  reasons  why  we  could  not  pay 
The  price  exacted  from  us  ! 
My  ear,  though  fain,  I  might  have  turned  away 
From  spring's  love-startled  promise, 
I  might  have  given  up  the  glorious  sea 
And  the  majestic  mountains  might  for  me 
Have  ceased  to  be ; 

God,  with  one  sudden  rinsing  of  his  hand, 
Might  have  wiped  bare 
The  earth-ball  of  its  deeds  and  pageantries, 
Tea,  even  of  light  and  air, 
That  on  the  stark  circumference  I  might  stand 
And  choose  deliberately,  unvexed  of  these, 
Between  my  will  and  his. 
Then    I    had    said,   with    cheerful    voice    and 

strong, 

Somewhat  dismayed,  yet  with  a  cheerful  voice, 
"This    many   days,    Lord,    I  have    thought  it 

long 

Till  I  could  put  away  creation's  noise, 
The  tragic  streets,  the  poignant  drip  of  rains, 
But  chiefly  the  loud  speaking  in  my  veins 
Concerning  this  and  that  desirable. 
Now  you  have  put  me  in  a  quiet  place, 
Take  but  away  your  too  expectant  face, 
And  all  shall  then  be  well. 

100 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Then  I  can  ponder,  as  I  meant  to  do 

And  as  I  singly  long  since  thought  was  mine, 

The  mysteries  divine ; 

Make  quiet  proof  of  you 

If  you  be  verily  my  lord  or  no, 

And,  having  found  you  to  be  truly  so, 

Shall  understand  for  sooth, 

That    down   the   eternities  I  may  launch   my 

mind 

Not  as  a  tame  hawk  haggard  down  the  wind, 
"Whom  huntsman's  cry  pursueth, 
But  as  an  eagle  without  bell  or  jess, 
Obedient  alone  to  his  soul's  lordliness. 

Third  Youth. 

Better  with  captives  in  the  slaver's  pen 
Hear  women  sob,  and  sit  with  cursing  men, 
Yea,  better  here  among  these  writhen  lips, 
Than  pluck  out  from  the  blood  its  old  compan- 
ionships. 

If  God  had  set  me  for  one  hour  alone, 
Apart  from  clash  of  sword 
And  trumpet-pealed  word, 
I  think  I  should  have  fled  unto  his  throne. 
But  always  ere  the  dayspring  took  the  sky, 
Somewhere  the  silver  trumpets  were  aery, — 
Sweet,  high,  oh,  high  and  sweet ! 

101 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

What  voice  could  summon  so  but  the   soul's 

Paraclete  ? 
Whom  should  such  voices  call  but  me,  to  dare 

and  die  ? 

O  ye  asleep  here  in  the  eyrie  town, 
Ye  mothers,  babes,  and  maids,  and  aged  men, 
The  plain  is  full  of  foemen  !     Turn  again  — 
Sleep  sound,  or  waken  half 
Only  to  hear  our  happy  bugles  laugh 
Lovely  defiance  down, 
As  through  the  steep 
G  rey  streets  we  sweep, 
Each  horse  and  man  a  ribbed  fan  to  scatter  all 

that  chaif ! 

How   from   the   lance-shock    and    the    griding 

sword 

Untwine  the  still  small  accents  of  the  Lord  ? 
How  hear  the  Prince  of  Peace   and  Lord  of 

Hosts 
Speak  from    the  zenith    'mid    his    marshalled 

ghosts, 

"Vengeance  is  mine,  I  will  repay ; 
Cease  thou  and  come  away  ! " 
Or  having  seen  and  harkened,  how  refrain 
From  crying,  heart  and  brain, 
"So,  Lord,  Thou  sayest  it,  Thine  — 

102 


But  also  mine,  ah  surely  also  mine  ! 

Else  why  and  for  what  good 

This  strength  of  arm  my  father  got  for  me 

By  perfect  chastity, 

This  glorious  anger  poured  into  my  blood 

Out  of  my  mother's  depths  of  ardency  f 

A  Confuted  Voice. 
Not  very  long  to-day 

Thy  arm  held  back  the  mischief  of  the  tide  ! 
Thou  could' st  not  check  the  play 
Of  scythes,  the  awful  chariots  beside  ! 
Thy  blood  has  ebbed  a  little  from  its  pride. 

A  Girl's  Voice. 

I  waited  patiently  and  thought  to  hear 
The  secret  reason  dark, 
The  secret  reason  dark  and  dear 
Why  none  of  us  had  heart  to  mark 
The  pale  evangel  whispering  from  the  sphere. 
For  oft  the  moon  between  the  garden  boughs 
Her  looks  of  summer  longing  would  efface, 
And  come  to  be  a  halo  round  the  brows 
Of  Him  who  died  to  give  the  sinner  grace, 
Now  saddening  o'er   His   purchase  from   that 

place. 
And  oft  at  dawn  I  heard  the  Sons  of  Morning 

103 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Silvered  with  lovely  menace  fill  the  sky, 
And  heard  their  solemn  lips  deliver  warning 
What  time  the  central  singer  lifted  high, 
In  the  deep  hush  twixt  ode  and  palinode, 
The  sangrael  of  the  sun,  brimmed  with  redeem- 
ing blood. 

But  how  might  I  attend  the  minatory 
Voices  of  many  angels  breathing  doom, 
When  from  the  window  of  the  little  room 
My  love's  face  had  not  faded,  and  the  story 
His  wakeful  mouth  had  whispered  in  the  gloom 
Spake  in  my  pulses  yet  ?    And  how  at  evening 

turn 

To  feel  those  sad  eyes  down  the  moonlight  yearn, 
When  mouth  to  mouth  and  breast  to  aching 

breast 

I  held  my  lover  close,  and  by  his  nest 
The  nightingale,  scarce  master  of  his  mood, 
Now  after  faint  essay 
And  amorous  dim  delay 

Suddenly  steeped  his  heart  in  song's  mad  pleni- 
tude? 

A  Woman's  Voice. 

What  unripe  girl  is  this  who  maketh  bold 
To  speak  for  lovers  at  the  extreme  hour, 
Yet  fancy-paints  the  flower  ? 
Yet  hides  with  image-gilt  the  naked  gold  I 

104 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

0  sisters,  brothers,  help  me  to  arise  ! 

Of  God's  two-horned  throne  I  will  lay  hold 
And  let  Him  see  my  eyes ; 
That  He  may  understand  what  love  can  be, 
And  raise  his  curse,  and  set  his  children  free. 

Another  Woman's  Voice. 
My  life  was  a  rank  venomed  weed 
And  hers,  I  think,  a  flower  ; 
But  my  harsh  voice  shall  have  a  power 
Fiercer  than  hers  to  plead. 
About  His  knees  with  curses  I  will  cling, 
My  veins  I  will  break  open,  till  He  see 
The  barb  of  the  intolerable  sting, 
The  tongues  of  the  immitigable  fire 
He  planted  there  to  fret  and  fumble  through  me, 
To  craze  and  to  undo  me, 
Till  on  the  cruel  altars  where  He  threw  me 

1  slew  my  heart's  desire  ! 

Old  Man. 

Of  double  fetters  be  not  fain,  my  child, 
To  these  thou  wearest  be  thou  reconciled. 
Spread  not  before  his  dark  averted  gaze 
(Now  that  He  holds  his  hand  and  seemeth  satis- 
fied) 
The  love  that  called  you  unappointed  ways 

105 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

And  filled  your  hearts  with  pride. 

A  little  while  He  left  you  free 

In  passion's  privilege 

To  god  it  on  the  peaks  of  personality, 

But  ye  have  walked  too  near  the  hither  edge. 

Yet  once  I  thought — 

My  old  heart  meekened  to  an  evening  mood 

By  dint  of  years  and  much  beatitude  — 

He  was  not  jealous  as  the  prophet  taught, 

Nor  loving-tolerant  as  mild  teachers  held, 

But  swayed  to  mystical  participation 

Of  various  delight 

By  every  chrysalid's  meandering  flight 

And  million-footed  onset  of  heroic  nation  ; 

To  instant  joy  impelled 

By  every  jet  of  life  that  from  Time's  fountain 

quelled. 

So  deemed  I,  musing  on  the  headstrong  glee 
Of  children  at  my  knee, 
But  He  ordained  his  ways  after  another  fashion. 

Fourth  Youth. 

'Twas  not  the  lover  nor  the  warrior  stirred 
His  jealous  arm  to  smite, 
Nor  he  who  longed  to  launch  forth  as  a  bird 
In  far  and  lonely  flight 

106 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

To  seek  the  truth  of  things,  nor  he  who  heard 

The  choral  winds  in  Nature's  temple  chaunting. 

All  these  He  could  endure, 

Since  his  creation  and  its  furniture 

They  merely   used,    nor  vexed   his  ears  with 

vaunting 

Themselves  creators  too 
And  fashioners  of  worlds,  and  pilots  of  them 

flaunting 

Beside  his  in  the  blue. 
But  some  there  were  infatuate,  audacious, 
To  whom  the  world's  vast  girth 
Seemed  niggard  and  unspacious  ; 
Who,  having  clambered  or  been  borne  on  wings 
Above  the  realms  of  sense 
From  off  God's  secret  altars  ravished  thence 
The  plastic  fire  of  his  imaginings 
And  brought  it  down  to  earth. 

Then,  pale  with  supernatural  intention, 

We  builders  of  the  over- world  arose, 

And  softly  to  their  houses  of  ascension, 

Orbing  as  soft  as  April  buds  unclose, 

But  bowelled  of  the  furious  lava-stream, 

Star  after  ordered  star  went  up  the  heavens  of 

dream : 
Each  from  the  other  ever  differing, 

107 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Glory  from  glory, 

And  each  a  world  summed  and  replete 
With  all  the  human  heart  forebodeth  well 
Or  hoardeth  to  repeat 
Of  tragical  and  sweet 
In  earthly  summer  and  the  mortal  spring 
And  man's  peculiar  story, 
Yet  by  the  mind  made  an  immortal  thing, 
Patiently  purged  and  weaned  of  its  corrupti- 
ble. 

Oh,  how  should  Man  into  the  dust  be  trod, 
Who  is  himself  a  god  ? 
How  should  the  lord  of  each  enchanted  isle 
For  gazing  on  a  brother-god's  high  sacrificial 

sorrow 

Say  himself  low  and  vile, 
Or  for  that  Sufferer's  sake 
Teen  to  his  own  undarkened  being  borrow, 
And  in  a  gloom  of  abnegation  break 
The  wand  wherewith  he  summoned  from  their 

sleep 

The  whirlwinds  of  the  everlasting  deep, 
And  souls  of  men  and  spirits  of  lost  hours 
And    spring's    sequestered    firstlings,    the    sky 

flowers, 
Bound  to  his  golden  powers  ? 

108 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Michael. 

I  wait  no  longer  on  their  stammering  tongues  ! 
Once  more  I  pray  thee  rise  and  come  away. 
The  Valley  darkens  fast,  and  Heaven  stays 
Thy  single  voice  to  make  its  concord  full. 

Raphael. 

These  voices  we  have  hearkened  lack  as  well, 
To  make  such  concord  as  I  care  to  hear. 

Michael. 
Then  curse  thee  for  a  stubborn  heart !  —  Nay, 

nay, 
I  will  not  curse  thee  whom  I  love.  .  .  .  Take 

heed 

Lest  any  wing  patrolling  in  the  dark, 
Mistaking  thee  for  one  of  these,  should  smite. 

Raphael. 

Already  from  the  deeps  approacheth  one, 
Staining  the  limbs  and  faces  of  the  dead 
With  amber  as  he  flies.     What  clime  has  blown 
Azaziel's  radiance  to  so  blear  a  tinct  ? 

Azaziel  (flying  past). 
Woe  !  Woe  !  unto  the  dweUers  in  this  Vale. 
Woe  unto  them  who  wait  the  second  death  ! 
Prepare  to  meet  the  Worm  that  dieth  not ! 

109 


Raphael. 
Azaziel,  hear  !     "What  meaneth  .  .  .  ? 

Michael. 

He  is  past, 

Bearing  his  message  further.     How  it  sobs 
And  falters  on  the  wind  ! 

Raphael. 

In  the  deeps  begins 
A  myriad  lamentation.  .  .  . 

Michael. 

.Nearer  now, 

And  mixed  with  keener  individual  cry.  .  .  . 

Raphael. 

The  sea  of  death  sways  moaning  and  recoils, 
Bristling  with  serried  surf  of  forms  uplift, 
Postures  of  supplication  and  despair, 
Forlorn  attitudes ! 

Michael. 

From  the  starless  sky 

A  star  shoots  screaming,  hushes  in  mid- flight, 
And  stands  at  gaze  above  the  vasty  caves, 
The  cafions  and  the  aged  wells  of  dark 
Toward  which  this  valley  plunges. 

110 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Raphael. 

Far  below 

Disastrous  splendor  glares  above  the  abyss, 
And  in  the  midst  a  bulk  of  sinuous  shade 
That  lifts  and  swings  a  snaky  head  aloft 
Surveying  where  to  strike.  .  .  . 

Michael. 

Away !    Away ! 

Even  now  his  pendulous  neck  doth  sweep  the 

Vale 

From  wall  to  wall,  incredibly  advanced 
Leagues  hither,  though  his  lewder  folds  are  still 
Hid  backward  in  the  abyss.     Away  !    Away  ! 
From  yonder  peak  we  may  behold  all  safe  : 
To  linger  here  even  spirits  dare  not. 

Raphael.  _, 

vrO  5 

I  tarry.     Let  me  take  thy  mighty  sword. 
A  minstrel's  hand  can  swing  a  blade  at  need. 

Michael. 

Not  so.     Forgive  me  this  my  violence  ! 
Thy  soul  is  all  distraught  and  desperate, 
And  I  must  save  thee  in  thine  own  despite. 

(He  overpowers  Raphael,  and  bears  him  aloft  just 
as  the  enormous  swinging  head  of  the  Serpent 
blots  out  the  scene. ) 

111 


ACT     V. 


Time  :  as  in  Act  IV. 


ACT   V.      SCENE    I. 

An  exposed  upland :  one  side  looJcs  down  into  the 

Valley  of  the  Judgment,  on  the  others  the  snow-peaks 

fade  into  the  visionary  cliffs  and  slopes  crowned  by 

the  battlements  of  Heaven.     Sunset  glow  still  lingers 

on  the  heights :  the  moon  is  rising. 


Raphael  (awaking). 
Where  are  we,  brother  ?    I  remember  naught. 

Michael. 
Safe  lifted  o'er  the  Vale,  and  none  too  soon. 

Raphael. 
Help  me  to  rise. 

Michael. 

Nay,  rest  thee  yet  a  while. 

Raphael. 

Something  of  portent  passes  in  the  Vale  — 
I  cannot  well  recall,  but  know  'tis  so 
By  thy  wild  looking.     Can  thy  vision  pierce 
So  downward  through  the  mists  t    Mine  eyes  are 

weak 
And  blink  at  the  mild  moon. 

115 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Michael. 

Spare  thou  to  look. 

Even  me  it  grieveth,  thee  it  will  destroy 
With  present  heart-break. 

Raphael. 

O  remembrance  now 
Creeps  moaning    through  the  sea-halls  of  my 

mind, — 
A  sluggish  neap,  with  loss  and  wreckage  strewn  ! 

Michael. 

The  Serpent  enters  now  that  last  defile 
High  lifted  toward  the  spiritual  hills. 
Behind  him  as  he  came  has  silence  fallen 
And  gesture  ceased  :  final  ineloquence. 
These  hither  people  are  the  lesser  thewed 
But  more  inspirited,  who  held  the  fight 
Vanward  against  us,  and  who  fell  the  first 
Before  the  whirlwind  of  our  going  down. 

Raphael. 

Is  it  too  late  to  save  this  remnant  few 
For  seed  of  a  new  world,  planted  afar 
Beyond  this  trouble?  Come,  thy  might  and 

mine ! 
He  lifts  a  questioning  head  and  seems  to  stand 

116 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Hesitant  at  the  mouth  of  the  defile  : 
There  give  him  battle.  .  .  . 

Michael. 

Nay. 

Raphael. 

Then  I  alone. 
Michael. 

Too  late  5  and  even  if  sooner,  much  too  late  ! 
He  brings  the  second  death ;   his  fangs  have 

power, 

'Tis  whispered,  on  the  flaming  seraphim 
To  tarnish  or  to  quench  ;  one  venom  fleck 
Flung  from  his  jaws,   how  might  it  lame  and 

scar 
Our  substance  archangelical. 

Raphael. 

Yes,  yes, 

You  give  me  reasons  to  it.     Lovelier 

Such  scars  upon  the  breast,  though  mortal  proven, 

Than  that  fair  sigil  set  upon  thy  brow 

The  morn  of  thy  first  victory.     "Why  live, 

Why  live,  when  all  these  wills  that  searched  the 

earth  — 

Until  they  found  their  one  and  inward  love, 
Refusing  to  be  still  —  have  ceased  to  search, 
Though  quite  unsatisfied  f  To  feel  the  night 

117 


Unvexed  of  longing,  and  the  day  purged  blank 
Of  laughter  and  of  sorrow  and  of  brawl ; 
No  pride  of  life  to  glory  in  the  sun, 
No  ecstasy  to  mate  the  moon's  increase, 
No  heart  interpreting  the  twilight  thrush  — 
All  the  heart's  business  done !     Nay,  not  for 

me ! 

Mine  ear  hath  lain  too  long  on  Nature's  pulse, 
I  cannot  miss  that  music.     Let  me  go. 

Michael  (still  detaining  him). 
Govern  thy  heart  and  tongue.     Nature,   thou 

knowest, 

Was  but  a  bye-thought  of  the  Eternal  Mind, 
A  whim  —  extravagant,  repented  of, 
And  now  in  its  chief  element  of  Man 
Annihilate  and  put  away,  save  those 
Who  rendered  up  their  wills  to  His,  and  share 
This  night  with  Him  the  immortal  quietudes. 

Lo,  where  the  Serpent  enters  !     Quick  and  dead 
Loosen  their  maimed  embraces.     From  beneath 
Heaves  the  incumbent  carnage.     In  the  clefts 
And  on  the  headlands  scattered  souls  arise 
Expectant  or  imploring  .  .  .  Now  he  reigns 
Instant  among  them,  and  their  say  ings- nay 
Decrease  and  come  to  nothing. 

118 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Raphael. 

All  is  done : 

The  great  refusal  made.     The  wayward  heats 
That  might  have  moved  God's  blood  to  sweetest 

ends 

In  dreams  and  deed,  have  bled  themselves  away, 
And  peace  is  his,  though  profitless. 

Michael. 

Hush !     Look  ! 

The  Worm  goes  on  ! 

Raphael. 

What  say'st  thou  ?    Speak  ! 
Mine  eyes  are  still  too  dim,  I  see  not  well 
What  passes  'neath  the  drifting  fogs. 

Michael.  He  mounts  , 

He  lays  his  length  upward  the  visioned  hills, 

The  inviolable  fundaments  of  Heaven  ! 

There  where  he  climbs  the  kindled  slopes  grow 

pale, 

Ashen  the  amethystine  dells,  and  dim 
The  starry  reaches.  .  .  .  Now  he  coils  his  bulk 
About  a  foreland,  and  the  nacrous  light 
It  beetled  with  turns  cinder.     High  he  piles 
His  folds,  and  seems  to  note  the  upward  way. 
Hark,  the  trump  sings  to  battle  !     I  am  called. 

(He  flies  upward  toward  the  walls  of  Heaven.) 
119 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Raphael  (alone). 

O  darkest  creature  of  God's  shaping  thought, 
Shamefullest  born,  in  that  unsacred  hour 
When,  pining  for  the  pools  of  ancient  sloth, 
His  soul  repenteth  Him  that  he  had  made 
Man,  and  had  put  that  passion  out  to  use  ! 
Clearest  thou  inward  now  to  find  the  heart 
That  bore  thee  shuddering  and  hath  fostered 

thee 

With  secret  sweat  of  agonizing  brows  ? 
Has  this  day's  great  defection  armed  thy  fang 
And  lit  thy  wrath  to  seek  Him  where  He  sits 
Sickening  amid  his  harsh-established  peace  ? 

On  which  side  then  shall  Eaphael  be  found, — 
The  sociable  spirit,  very  friend  of  man 
And  Nature's  old-time  lover  ?    Surely  there 
At  God's  right  hand,  with  a  loud  song  for  sword 
To  beat  the  Spectre  back  when  armies  fail, 
And  cheer  Him  as  the  shepherd  Israel's  king. 

(Re flies  after  Michael.} 


120 


ACT    V.      SCENE    II. 

Raphael  stands  on  a  promontory  of  tlie  cloudy 
slope  up  which  the  Serpent  has  passed.  The  Valley 
of  the  Judgment  lies  far  below. 

Raphael. 

A  mortal  weariness  beats  down  my  wing  ; 
I  cannot  farther.     Here  I  must  remain, 
Whether  I  will  or  no  a  truant  still, 
While  battle  rages  round  the  heart  of  God, — 
A  recreant  on  the  very  slopes  where  first 
With  wistful  feet  from  Heaven  adventuring 
I  sought  those  little  flowers  of  shyest  light 
Whose  earthly  hue  and  palpitance  would  speak 
A  wild  distress  of  sweetness,  till  my  blood 
Sang  wander-songs,  and  pictured  to  itself 
The  happy  outland  chances  of  the  spring. 
I  think  none  grow  now  in  the  muted  dells 
Nor  on  the  chidden  reaches  ;  yet  —  perhaps  — 
If  I  should  search  as  earnestly  as  once.  .  .  . 

My  mind  strays  like  a  fevered  child's  to-night 
And  plays  with  leaves  and  straws,  regarding  not 
How  fate  comes  on  next  instant !  .  .  .  Not  alone, 
Not  all  cornpanionless  must  I  abide 
Its  coming,  love  be  praised  who  sends  me  love 

121 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

And  comradeship  now  at  my  dearest  need  ! 
For  hither  through  the  wintry  windelstrae 
Flee,  veer,  and  flee  a  fluttered  company 
With  hands  outstretched  and  groping.     Woman- 
kind, 

By  the  lorn  influence  that  companions  them 
And  hangs  grief  in  the  wind.  ...  A  taper's 

flame 
Streams  backward  o'er  each  trembling  hand. 

'Twill  be 

The  seven  dear  sister  spirits  ancillary 
Who  tend  their  lamps  of  laud  before  the  Throne. 

Stay,  sisters,  stay  !     They  swerve  aside  and  flee 
More  terror-stricken  still.     I  prithee  stay  ; 
'Tis  Eaphael  calls  ! 

First  Lamp. 

O  then  art  thou  too  fled  ? 
Haste,  let  us  flee  together  !    We  had  thought 
All  but  the  timid  spirits  still  abode 
The  battle's  outcome.     Timid  thou  art  not, 
Though  woman-gentle ;  is  the  battle  lost  ? 
Or  won  t    Oh,  surely  won,  since  thou  art  here. 

Eaphael. 

I  come  from  earthward.     Mortal  weariness 
122 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Beat  down  my  wing,  and  I  was  forced  to  stay. 
How  goes  the  struggle  f 

First  Lamp. 

In  and  in  it  stormed 

From  ring  to  lessening  ring,  until  we  fled, 
I  and  the  sister  Lamps,  save  only  one, 
Our  meekest  and  most  patient  flame  of  praise, 
Whom  naught  could  make  afraid.     Now  by  the 

wind 
Distract,  we  wander  on  these  withered  hills. 

Second  Lamp. 
How  withered  from  the  day  thou  brought' st  us 

hence 

Flowers  for  our  lampads  !  — tiny  troublous  things 
That  living  pierced  us  with  a  faint  unrest 
And  dying  left  a  nameless  woe  behind. 

Raphael. 

Call  up  each  sweetness  over- lived,  for  soon 
Sweet  shall  be  sweet  no  more,  nor  sad  be  sad. 
Momently  yonder  Heaven's  heart  of  light 
Throbs  feebler,  and  the  dark  gains  on  the  day. 

Now  where  he  runs  afar,  the  sun  hath  felt 
Sharp  pangs  delay  his  feet,  for  swiftly  hither 

123 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

In  the  distressful  beaming  of  the  moon 
Comes  on  the  wasted  light  of  Uriel. 

Uriel  (approaching). 

The  dream  is  done  !     Petal  by  petal  falls 
The  coronal  of  creatured  bloom  God  wove 
To  deck  his  brows  at  dawn. 

Raphael. 

No  hope  remains  ? 
Uriel. 

To  save  Him  from  himself  not  cherubim 
Nor  seraphim  avail.  Who  loves  not  life 
Eeceiveth  not  life's  gifts  at  any  hand. 

Raphael. 

And  life  He  loved  not,  though  it  sprang  from 
Him! 

Uriel. 

He  loved  it  not  entirely,  good  and  ill. 

Raphael. 
For  what  end  should  we  love  an  evil  thing  f 

Uriel. 

Better  than  I  thou  knowest,  truant  soul ! 
Who  all  the  summer  hours  didst  love  to  stoop 
O'er  insect  feuds,  herb- whisperings,  and  watch 

124 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

The  prurient-fingered  sap  startle  the  trees 
To  sudden  laughter  of  bloom.     Better  than  I 
Thou  knowest  what  lewd  rebellion  stings  the  core 
Of  nature,  bidding  every  seed  awake 
To  sacramental  life  after  its  kind  ; 
Better  than  I  thou  kuowest  what  cruelties 
Eage  round  about  each  starry  heroism, 
Out  of  what  murky  stuff  the  lover  builds 
His  soul's  white  habitation.     'Tis  not  mine 
To  lesson  thee  how  height  and  depth  are  bound 
So  straitly  that  when  evil  dies,  as  soon 
Good  languishes,  nor  how  the  flesh  and  soul 
Quicken  with  striving,  and  when  strife  is  done 
Decline  from  what  they  were. 

Raphael. 

"Would  He  had  dared 

To  nerve  each  member  of  his  mighty  frame  — 
Man,  beast,  and  tree,  and  all  the  shapes  of  will 
That  dream  their  darling  ends  in  clod  and  star  — 
To  everlasting  conflict,  wringing  peace 
From  struggle,  and  from  struggle  peace  again, 
Higher  and  sweeter  and  more  passionate 
With  every  danger  passed !     "Would  He  had 

spared 

That  dark  Antagonist  whose  enmity 
Gave  Him  rejoicing  sinews,  for  of  Him 

125 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

His  foe  was  flesh  of  flesh  and  bone  of  bone, 
With  suicidal  hand  He  smote  him  down, 
And  now  indeed  His  lethal  pangs  begin. 

First  Lamp  (to  Uriel). 
Brother,  what  lies  beyond  this  trouble  f    Death  1 

Uriel. 
All  live  in  Him,  with  Him  shall  all  things  die. 

Second  Lamp. 
And  the  snake  reign,  coiled  on  the  holy  hill  ? 

Uriel. 
Sorrow  dies  with  the  heart  it  feeds  upon. 

Raphael. 

Look,  where  the  red  volcano  of  the  fight 
Hath  burst,  and  down  the  violated  hills 
Pours  ruin  and  repulse,  a  thousand  streams 
Choked  with  the  pomp  and  furniture  of  Heaven. 
In  vain  the  Lion  ramps  against  the  tide, 
In  vain  from  slope  to  slope  the  giant  Wraths 
Bally  but  to  be  broken.     Dwindling  dim 
Across  the  blackened  pampas  of  the  wind 
The  routed  Horses  flee  with  hoof  and  wing, 
Till  their  trine  light  is  one,  and  now  is  quenched. 

126 


THE    MASQUE    OF    JUDGMENT 

Uriel. 

The  spirits  fugitive  from  Heaven's  brink 
Put  off  their  substance  of  ethereal  fire 
And  mourn  phantasmal  on  the  phantom  alps. 

Fourth  Lamp. 

Mourn,  sisters  !     For  our  light  is  fading  too. 
Thou  of  the  topaz  heart,  thou  of  the  jade, 
And  thou  sweet  trembling  opal  —  ye  are  grown 
Grey  things,  and  aged  as  God's  sorrowing  eyes. 

First  Lamp. 
My  wick  burns  blue  and  dim. 

Second  Lamp. 

My  oil  is  spent. 
Raphael. 

The  moon  smoulders  ;  and  naked  from  their  seats 
The  stars  arise  with  lifted  hands,  and  wait. 


127 


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